Preamble

The House met at Eleven o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

NEW WRITS

For Rotherham, in the room of John Henry Jones, esquire, deceased.

For Swansea, East, in the room of David Llywellyn Mort, esquire, deceased.—[Mr. Bowden.]

Orders of the Day — LOCAL GOVERNMENT (FINANCIAL PROVISIONS) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

11.6 a.m.

Mr. Rupert Speir: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
From its Title the Bill may appear to be somewhat dull and humdrum, but I think that the more hon. Members study it the more interesting they will find it. The Bill is a very mixed bag—a most miscellaneous of miscellaneous provisions Bills. The Press have already given it some nicknames. A "parish pump Bill" one paper called it. A "rag bag Bill" was another name. A "wasps to wells Bill" was said by a third paper. I call it a housemaid's Bill, because it tidies up so many loose ends in local government.
The Bill sets out to remove a great deal of red tape and to abolish much to-ing and fro-ing between local authorities and Government Departments in Whitehall. In short, the Bill should make local government a bit more local. The Bill applies to all kinds of local authorities, from the London County Council to parish councils. I do not think that anyone would deny that it would give councils a little more scope and provide them with a little more initiative and discretion.
I would add that that view is confirmed, I believe, by my hon. Friend's Department, the Ministry of Housing and

Local Government, which has told me that if the Bill is accepted by the House—to use the exact words—it will
cut out a mass of unproductive paper work both in local authorities themselves and in Whitehall.
That view has also been expressed by the National Association of Parish Councils in a letter which I received from the secretary of that association. Wishing the Bill well, he said:
Now that we have had an opportunity of examining the published version of your Bill I should like to say that we support it with pleasure because we believe it will do something to confer initiative on local authorities and will eliminate a large quantity of red tape. In other words, we would expect it to channel funds now consumed in procedural correspondence into useful fields of work and will, therefore, enable ratepayers to get better value for their money.
This is not the first Private Member's Bill that I have had the privilege of sponsoring in the House. The other Measures, acceptable as they have been, in particular the Litter Act and the Noise Abatement Act, did, nevertheless, seek to impose restrictions on the public. They curbed people's liberty. I regretted that because, by and large, I should prefer to set people free. I am glad that, on the contrary, this Bill seeks to set people free—free to do certain reasonable, commonsense things which at present they are either not allowed to do at all, or else they have to obtain the Minister's special sanction before they can do them. It has been well and truly said that common sense is not very common. In fact, I think that it is all too rare.
I am glad to emphasise that the Bill lays no new duties on local authorities and gives no new powers over the public. I realise only too well that at present local government expenditure is undergoing rigorous scrutiny. The burden of the rates is very heavy, and as a ratepayer both in the north of England and in London I sympathise with the desire to keep rates down. I am, therefore, glad to be able to say—I understand that this is the view of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government—that for the most part the Bill will not involve extra expenditure by local authorities, and that where it makes some small extra expenditure possible adequate safeguards are provided to prevent misuse.
As will be readily apparent, the Bill is largely an amending Measure, and for


this reason its wording is often somewhat complicated. Perhaps on this account I ought to give a rather more detailed account of the Clauses than would perhaps otherwise be reasonable on Second Reading. I suggest that Clauses 2, 5, 6 and 7 are the most important and useful ones, and I propose to say something about them.
In passing, I think I ought to warn hon. Members that Clause 1 is not the gay, spendthrift Clause which it might appear at first sight, nor is it a very novel one. It will authorise a local authority to pay expenses incurred by members attending conferences, but, by and large, it simply puts on a proper footing what is already being done by a roundabout and cumbersome procedure. Furthermore, the power given under the Clause will be controlled and curtailed very strictly by regulations made by the Minister. This will not only limit the amount of the allowances to be paid to people attending conferences, but will restrict the number of members allowed to go to any one conference. Again, I am advised that the Clause should involve little or no increase in expenditure and it will, in fact, save some administrative costs. Therefore, I think that hon. Members will agree that it would be quite unreasonable to label it as anything in the way of a squandermaniac's charter.
Clause 2 I regard as an eminently sensible one. It contains a provision which is long overdue. In fact, the Clause is designed to meet the very point which my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Kershaw) had in mind when, last Session and again earlier this Session, he introduced his Local Government Act, 1948 (Amendment) Bill. The point is that Section 136 of the Local Government Act, 1948, enables a local authority to contribute, with the Minister's consent, to bodies providing services for the benefit of its area or its inhabitants. But this useful power may at present be exercised only where the activities in question are carried out in the actual areas—that is, within the territory—of the local authority which wants to make the contribution.
It often happens that the organisation concerned, be it a voluntary body running a convalescent home or a local museum or an old people's workshop, is serving the needs of several local

authorities, and in the case of, say, a market town situated in an urban district it may well be that it will be serving the interests and the welfare of many people living in the surrounding rural districts. Even if this is so, only the urban district may contribute as the premises concerned are situated in its territory. Rural districts would often like to contribute, but at present, as the law stands, they are unable to do so. The Clause simply removes this unreasonable limitation, and I hope that this will give pleasure and satisfaction to my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud.
I hope, too, that the House will think that Clause 5 is another reasonable, commonsense provision. It will allow local authorities a little more scope and a little more in the way of initiative. In fact, I hope it will get rid of a few local government cobwebs. It provides that a general power shall be given to local authorities to incur minor expenditure for the benefit of the area or its inhabitants. In case any hon. Member should think that this is, again, licensing squander-mania, I would emphasise that the expenditure for this purpose will be limited in the case of a parish council to one-fifth of a 1d. rate and to a 1d. rate for all other local authorities.
I suggest that this is a very modest figure when it is compared with the right of local authorities to subscribe up to a 6d. rate for supporting the arts of music and drama, a 3d. rate which health resorts may now spend on advertising their attractions, the 2d. rate which local authorities may spend for making good losses on allotments, or the 2d. rate which Scottish local authorities—the Bill refers only to England and Wales—have been allowed to spend for a far wider number of purposes for a long time past. If Aberdeen is allowed to spend up to a 2d. rate for these purposes, I do not see why places like Abingdon should not be allowed to spend up to a 1d. rate.
Nevertheless, seeing that this power to spend money is at the unfettered discretion of the local authority and it will not be necessary to obtain the Minister's consent, the Clause is made subject to certain very definite safeguards. In particular, I point out that the power may not be exercised to circumvent a refusal of ministerial consent, nor can it be used


to avoid any other restriction under any other power.
For what purposes, then, could this power be used? The answer is that it could be used for purposes which I think every hon. Member will accept are desirable, but which at present, in certain cases, the Minister cannot even sanction. Examples would be the fencing off of dangerous places such as old wells or disused canals, the erection of warning signs, life-saving patrols or remedial work following floods and gales, or repairs to village war memorials and crosses. I am sure that the House will agree that there is nothing very reckless about this proposal, and that it really would be penny-wise and pound-foolish to refuse to allow local authorities to undertake these trivial but nevertheless, at times, very useful tasks.
Clause 6 deals with another and quite different suggestion, namely, that local authorities should be allowed to issue bonds. This is in addition to their rights of raising money by mortgage or by the issue of stock. Bonds are considered to be a convenient and popular method of borrowing. They can be issued, so to speak, across the counter by the local authority concerned. They are likely to attract local investors. Already, 150 local authorities have been authorised by special Acts to issue bonds. A recent example was the Derbyshire County Council, which succeeded in attracting £2¾ million in one month by the issue of such bonds. I understand that the Association of Municipal Corporations is keen for this power to be extended. The proposal is to extend it to all local authorities other than parish councils.

Mr. Ronald Bell: I am not sure whether I heard my hon. Friend correctly. Did he say that this power already existed for some local authorities?

Mr. Speir: Yes. It has already been obtained by 150 local authorities under special Acts and is working well. The right to issue these bonds is governed by conditions laid down in the First Schedule and will also be governed in greater detail by regulations laid down by the Minister.
Clause 7 is another Clause which could be helpful in the right circum-

stances. It was a long Clause, partly because it is full of safeguards, and it must appear somewhat complicated. It only extends a power, which already exists in certain circumstances, for local authorities to suspend sinking funds for the repayment of loans in the case of undertakings which are revenue-producing. This qualification is important; the undertakings must be revenue-producing. In these cases, the suspension of a sinking fund is limited to a maximum of five years.
Clause 7 would extend the existing power of local authorities to other purposes to be specified by the Minister. In particular, I have in mind city centre development schemes, development schemes for urban clearance and renewal or development schemes for the reception of overspill. The Clause would enable the Minister to prescribe in regulations the exact purposes to which it should apply. Clearly, there would be no justification for suspending loan charges unless the scheme eventually was revenue-producing and profit-making. As I see it, the proper test in all cases is whether, after an initial un-remunerative period whilst the land is being cleared and the buildings, whatever they may be, are being erected, the expenditure can eventually be expected to yield revenue or to lead to a capital receipt by the sale of land.
As examples of the circumstances in which this power should be applied, I refer to the proposals that were made a few years ago for the redevelopment of the area in Cambridge known as the Lion Yard area. The scheme was dropped but I understand that the interest charges alone would have added 1s. 6d. to the rates for the City of Cambridge during the period when the scheme was producing no income.
My neighbouring City of Newcastle is merely one of the large corporations which has announced recently that permission to adopt a scheme of the kind outlined in the Clause would greatly help its central development and would enable work on it to start immediately. Councillor Fletcher, chairman of the Finance Committee of Newcastle Corporation, is reported in The Journal of 28th February as saying that a
"loan with its moratorium would be a vital contribution towards the making of a more


beautiful city and a big contribution towards helping the unemployed.
I hope, therefore, that this proposal may commend itself to the House.
I need not detain the House by giving a detailed account of the effects of all the remaining Clauses. Clause 8, however, seeks to extend the use of capital funds to the education service. This is because the need for excluding them has disappeared with the absorption in 1959 of the education grant into the general grant. Clause 9 would authorise local authorities to apply unexpended balances of loans in ways for which, at present, they require the Minister's consent. In practice, however, this consent is invariably given fairly well automatically. This general consent would save time, typing, paper and general expenses both for the local authority and for my hon. Friend's Department.
Clause 10 would give a similar relaxation of control over the use of capital money received as a result of a boundary alteration. This provision will assume greater importance as the work of the Local Government Commission and of county reviews proceeds. Whilst there is no new provision for grant under the Bill, any increase in expenditure under its provisions would attract rate deficiency grant—that is, for those local authorities which are entitled to such grant. I think I am safe in saving, however, that the amount involved would be very small. This is covered by Clause 12.
That is about the long and the short of the Bill. I admit that I should like to have done a bit more tidying-up, amending and spring cleaning. In particular, I have a soft corner in my heart for parish councils and I should like to have done a little more to help them. One must, however, remember that parish councils vary very much in size, in quality and in other ways and that this is a Private Member's Bill with all the limitations that that entails.
To sum up, members of local authorities do an immense amount of unpaid voluntary work. For their labours, they receive all too little thanks and all too much ingratitude: in fact, they receive more kicks and criticism than Members of the House of Commons. It is my hope that the Bill will make life just

a little easier for local authorities, for their councillors and for their officials.
I realise that the Bill is capable of misunderstanding and even of misrepresentation, but I do not think that any hon. Member could suggest that its provisions contain a great wind of change. I will be more than content if the Bill is allowed to generate a little gentle breeze which may disturb a few local government cobwebs and remove a little dust.

11.30 a.m.

Mr. Ronald Bell: I should like to start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Speir) on his continued good fortune in all sorts of ballots. He is indeed a fertile father of Bills and, what is more important, I find myself in general agreement with the legislative proposals which from time to time he puts forward. He now has a quite remarkable record in the bringing forward of Private Members' Bills and Motions. One remembers that the ancient Romans esteemed good luck to be one of the positive virtues. Certainly, upon that basis my hon. Friend is a very virtuous man.
I am sorry that my hon. Friend seems to be so alarmed by that phrase that he appears to be about to leave us. I do not propose to take an attitude to the Bill he has now put before us widely different from that which I have taken to those which he has put before us on previous occasions, but I should like to address to the House, for his comment later, some remarks of an interrogative character, and also to say a few words on the general import of the Bill.
As my hon. Friend will be the first to recognise, the Bill is a collection of various small points, small, that is, in their ambit, although each may be important in its own sphere. It therefore will be no reflection on my hon. Friend, and I think that it will plainly be not very far from the truth, if I suggest that a Ministry, the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, has had some knowledge of what my hon. Friend has in mind. The Bill's drafting is inevitably somewhat complicated, and it may be that my hon. Friend has had some help with that, too.
I also observe that the Bill will need a Money Resolution; that is to say, it will need money. Having read through


the Bill carefully, I see no reference to the National Land Fund or the Wheat Fund, or any of those other admirable sources of money. I take no offence at that, but since my hon. Friend is not relying on funds of that kind, he is obviously hoping for collaboration from the Front Bench at a later stage.
All this in itself is either admirable or neutral, but it bears out the general comment which I want to make on the Bill—that one must look at it a little carefully, not in any attitude of hostility, but because it seems to have had a Departmental inspiration and to be designed to save a certain amount of work in the Department. This ties up well enough with the anxiety which we all feel to cut down on staff of public Departments and to cut down expenditure which can be avoided and generally to make more efficient and keep up the machine of Government.
When one is doing that, especially when one is doing it in a Bill which gathers together rather a large number of detailed proposals, it is especially the duty of Parliament to scrutinise the proposals carefully to see that none of the checks, none of the superior discretions which Parliament has deliberately written into previous legislation, is being dismantled solely in the interests of administrative convenience and perhaps without regard to the hesitations which influenced Parliament on the previous occasions.
For example, my hon. Friend referred to the consents of the Minister or Ministers—because more than one Ministry is sometimes concerned—as being granted pretty well automatically, which means that they are usually, but not always, granted. It is the rare occasions when they are not granted which are the justification for Parliament saying in previous Acts that such expenditure should not be incurred without the scrutiny of the Ministry. It may be that, with the passage of time and the change of circumstances, we ought to reconsider those things and say that the permission is withheld so extremely rarely and the consequences of an error in any case so relatively unimportant, that we should simplify the procedure and give local authorities an unsupervised discretion.
But we ought to look at that, and I am sure that my hon. Friend will not think

it churlish of me or other hon. Members, if, either on Second Reading or later in Committee, we probe these matters carefully, because that is our duty on a purely detailed Bill of this kind.
After those preliminary and quite general remarks, I should like to say a few words about some of the Clauses. My hon. Friend dealt with Clause 1 a little briefly, saying only that this was no spendthrift Clause, but was only a way of doing directly what had previously been done by a somewhat roundabout procedure. I am not sure that the word "roundabout" is altogether happy in this context. We might be getting a little near to the truth of the matter when we say that visits to seaside conferences ought to be carefully watched.
One must not feel a spoilsport about this. People do a good deal of work in local authorities voluntarily and without any reward in the sense that councillors even more than Members of Parliament get kicks without hicks. Being a member of a local authority is a thankless job. I have had a small experience of it. Those who engage in the business of the central Government get a certain amount of esteem for what they do, which may or may not be deserved, but those engaged in local authority work are rather inclined to quarrel with their neighbours. The last thing one wants to do is to say that there shall be no perquisites to the work for local authorities.
Having said that, I must go on to say that I am a little worried about the frequency of these conferences and delegations and visits, and that this is something which we have to scrutinise. My hon. Friend said that it was all right because there would be some control by regulations. I should like to stop there and ask him whether that was not lifting the veil a little. Has he had an assurance about this? Has be been collaborating with a member of the Government in preparing the Bill? Was he foreshadowing something which the Parliamentary Secretary will tell us later?

Mr. Speir: There has been some collusion.

Mr. Bell: In words which will be familiar to the Parliamentary Secretary as to me, I hope that that collusion has


stopped short of connivance and being accessory to. No doubt the Parliamentary Secretary will enlarge on that, because it is not really the kind of thing on which he can rely in framing legislation, or we can rely on it only to a modified extent. I think that I am right in saying that the regulation-making power is not in this Bill, but comes under other legislation.

Mr. Speir: As I understand, if the Clause were accepted new regulations would be laid by the Minister, but there are certain regulations in existence which limit members of councils going to conferences to 50s. a day subsistence allowance and travelling expenses, and provides that not more than two Members of any council should go to any one conference.

Mr. Bell: I am obliged to my hon. Friend. The point is that the power to make regulations is not contained in this Bill, but is in other legislation.
My hon. Friend has assured us that there will be control of the allowance paid to a member of a local authority going to one of these conferences, and control of the number of members going to such a conference. I think that broadly speaking that has been the position up to now. What is left, and the point I am on, is that there is not really any control of the number of conferences to which representatives of a local authority may go. I do not know whether this is going into the regulations. I do not think that this control exists at the moment. I can see considerable difficulties in trying to put something like this in regulations, but if we are to pass Clause 1, some thought must be given to their being some element of control somewhere as to the number of these operations.
These suspicions, if they may be suspicions, will be misplaced and unworthy in respect of most local authorities, but one has to legislate for everybody, and there can be abuses. I think that here and there, from time to time, there have been abuses of this business of the conference jaunt, and I am saying that if we are to short-circuit the existing method of going to the Minister and allow local authorities to do this direct and without his permission, we have to add a third element to the existing two elements of control.

Mr. G. W. Reynolds: The hon. Gentleman has referred to the conference jaunt and to some members of local authorities living fairly well at various seaside resorts at the expense of the ratepayer. I assure the hon. Gentleman that a maximum of 50s. a day does not allow for much high living. One of the limitations is the amount of money which the individual councillor is prepared to pay out of his own pocket to make it possible to do the job on 50 "bob" a day.

Mr. Bell: The hon. Gentleman must not exaggerate what I said. I hedged it round with the most careful qualifications and said that the majority of these cases are legitimate occasions, and there is no abuse of the procedure. But one has to legislate for everybody, and when dealing with public money and removing, which Clause 1 seeks to do, an existing control by cutting out the Minister, one has to look at the possibility of abuse which is opened up by the proposals here.
I think that either in regulations, or by some amendment to the Bill in Committee, we ought to turn our thoughts to these points. I do not want to carry this any further, and I do not want to exaggerate. Indeed, in opening what I said on this point, I was at pains to pay tribute to the amount of unpaid and somewhat thankless service which is given by members of local authorities.
I find Clause 2 interesting, because I am a little puzzled to know how this has worked in the past. For example, I am a member of the committee of a body called the Commons Open Spaces and Footpaths Preservation Society which does admirable work. It exercises its influence in the areas of most local authorities of a rural character, and even some urban districts, though perhaps not in towns.
This body has been, and still is, almost mainly supported by the subscriptions from local authorities. I listened carefully to what my hon. Friend said about Clause 2. It appeared to me, speaking from experience of the practical cases, that there seemed to exist some sort of discretion along the lines my hon. Friend is seeking to create. I do not know the answer to this. It may be that the Minister of Housing and Local Government has had, and still has, a special


dispensing or enlarging power which he has exercised to enable this to go on, but as far as I can see this might be unnecessary.
It is certainly most desirable that this power should exist, otherwise one will get the most absurd anomalies, such as the one mentioned by my hon. Friend, of the old people's home serving both an urban district and the surrounding rural districts. I think that one wants all the authorities concerned to contribute, but perhaps my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will clear up the doubts I have expressed about this point, which I find puzzling at the moment.
My hon. Friend did not really say anything about Clause 3, but it should be mentioned that this is the one which allows a co-opted member of a committee or some emanation from a local authority to be treated for expense purposes as though he were an elected member. Again, I have no objection on principle to this. I assume, however, that it will be subject to some scrutiny on the part of the Minister. I hope so because, I think that it should be. There must be some limit to it.

Mr. Speir: There is a limit. The person concerned has to be a co-opted member of the committee. This is very useful in the case of members of education or welfare committees, and for doctors and people like that.

Mr. Bell: The Clause refers only to co-opted members of committees, but it would be open to unlimited abuse if there were no scrutiny of it.
Perhaps my hon. Friend can tell me why there should be a special exclusion of Clause 3 from the discretion which otherwise exists to apply the provisions of the Bill to the Scilly Isles. What is special in the Scilly Isles about co-opted members of local authority committees? This is a fascinating point which may have small practical importance, but it is one which my hon. Friend might like to clear up. I hope that he knows the answer.

Mr. Speir: I did once.

Mr. Bell: The next material Clause is Clause 5. I had doubts about this, but my hon. Friend's speech has been

very helpful. At first, I could not understand the purposes for which this power might be exercised, because the Clause excludes any purpose for which the local authority is authorised by any other Statute—either unconditionally or subject to any limitation—to contribute money. It is difficult to see what this purpose could be. It cannot refer to the payment of subscriptions to outside bodies, because when the Bill is passed that will be authorised under Clause 2.
This Clause seems to have a very limited scope. My only passing comment is that the words "a local authority" give the Clause a somewhat varying significance. A county council already has such wide statutory powers that the Clause would appear to have very little application to it. A rural or urban district council which comes lower in the scale and has fewer statutory powers would seem to profit much more from the Clause.
I do not know whether the Clause applies to parish councils, although I suppose that it does. If so, it will be a very wide enabling Clause, because it will allow such a council to spend the product of 1d. rate—

Mr. Speir: One-fifth of 1d. rate.

Mr. Bell: I am sorry—one-fifth of 1d. rate on any matter in respect of which it is at present not entitled to spend money.

Mr. Speir: With some safeguards.

Mr. Bell: Yes—with some safeguards. I do not quarrel with that, but the practical effect is one which we can hardly work out in a Second Reading debate. It may become clearer in Committee. But its practical effect is obviously totally different as between a county council, a rural district council and a parish council. It is not very easy to evaluate the differences at this stage.
We must bear in mind the fact that the product of 1d. rate, on which this calculation is based, is a very variable sum, and also that it is about to be trebled. What now appears to be a fairly modest provision will become a very substantial one after April next—a fact which I hope my hon. Friend had in mind in drafting the provision, and one which we must certainly have in mind in Committee.
I am a little worried about Clause 6. I give due weight to what my hon. Friend said as to there being 150 special Acts allowing bonds to be issued. I should like to know whether these are to be bearer bonds or named bonds. My hon. Friend spoke of their sale over the counter. That implies that they are to be bearer bonds. Up to now, regrettably, bearer securities have been subject to the most stringent control under our exchange control legislation, and if a general authority is to be given to local authorities to issue bearer bonds I should like to know how this provision will be co-ordinated and made consistent with the general national policy regarding securities of this character. I put that point forward so that my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham or the Minister will have an opportunity of dealing with it.
It is a major point. If my hon. Friend does not have in mind bearer bonds when he talks of sales over the counter the problem does not arise, but if he does, the matter cannot be dealt with by a Clause in a Bill of this nature, concerning local authorities. This provision could be of rather wide import and I hope that my hon. Friend will see that we are further informed about it.
Clause 7 worries me more than any other. It gives power to suspend sinking funds and to borrow to pay interest. It is true that this power is limited to what are called projects of a "revenue-producing character". I do not see the relevance of the phrase "revenue-producing character" in this context, although there may be one. I cannot see any lesser moral failure in not being able to pay for the time being the interest on something of a revenue-producing character than the interest on something which is not of a revenue-producing character. Perhaps this point will also be cleared up later.
On the surface, there appears to be a valid distinction. It appears to be considered legitimate to borrow to pay the interest on a loan obtained for the purpose of a project which is of a revenue-producing character, or to suspend the sinking fund to do so, but if we look into the question more deeply we begin to see that the phrase "revenue-producing character" is an irrelevance in this case. That is my opinion, as at present advised.

Mr. Speir: Advised by whom?

Mr. Bell: By myself. What better or closer adviser can one have than oneself?

Mr. Anthony Kershaw: And it is cheaper, too.

Mr. Bell: It is only when I am advising myself that that applies.
The principle of borrowing to pay interest is not one that I find very attractive. Here a considerable gulf is fixed between local authority practice and national government practice. It has long been the practice of Her Majesty's Government not to borrow in peacetime for expenditure, whether capital or current. That is absolutely right. The Government sometimes borrow for other people, but not for themselves—except day to day, through Treasury Bills. It is one of the principles upon which we conduct our national accounts that the Government pay for everything out of current revenue. That is right, because the distinction between capital and current expenditure is largely a vulgar error, except in relation to trusts. It is all expenditure.
That principle should also apply in the case of a large local authority. I represent the constituency of South Buckinghamshire. I am glad to say that, for a long time, the Bucks County Council has worked on the principle of meeting its expenses, whether of what is called a capital character or a current character, out of revenue, year by year. If that means raising the rates, why should they not be raised? Year by year, over a period, this makes sense, and it avoids all interest charges. I am sorry to say that this year the council has decided to abandon that practice.
I can appreciate that a smaller authority will be less able to average out the burden from year to year. In its case there is some excuse for borrowing when an exceptionally heavy expenditure has been incurred and the council wants to spread the burden out over a period of years. But that is an operation which should be engaged in sparingly. It should not be the practice of any local authority to be borrowing all the time—on every occasion that it has to incur some fairly substantial capital expenditure. On the whole, these matters average out year by year. It is one thing in one year and


another in the next, and it is normally bad practice to proceed by raising money and paying it off over twenty years with interest.
It is a further step beyond that to start borrowing to pay the interest on the loan which has been obtained to carry something out. Anything can be justified, I suppose, in some special circumstances, but I am not very happy about Clause 7, which seems to make this a respectable proposition. But I do not know about that and I would welcome help on it from the Parliamentary Secretary.
If there is taking place a town redevelopment scheme which might involve a rather heavy capital expenditure for what is at the time a not very large authority, one might want to raise money and not pay interest on it for the first few years, until the new ratepayers move in. I can understand that. Is there any difficulty, in fact, in borrowing for town redevelopment the amount of money which is necessary to carry it out and finance it for the first three or four years?
It may be said that I am now advocating something which is not very different in character from what is proposed in Clause 7, that is to say, raising initially a capital sum which will finance the interest on the previous loan for the first few years. But the shape in which things are done is not without its importance, and I must confess to a considerable reluctance to a local authority raising a loan to carry out a town centre development and, a year or two later, raising a new loan to pay the interest on the previous loan over a period of years.
I think that on procedural grounds, which here come very close to principles, this is something which we should not encourage local authorities to do. If the Parliamentary Secretary says that under existing legislation concerning local government loans we cannot allow a local authority to leave a margin in its primary loan for a thing like this, then I suppose that one cannot very strongly resist Clause 7, but, as at present advised, by myself, I have these doubts about it.
As to the revenue-producing point, I said earlier that I thought it logically irrelevant. It does not apply, for example, to town centre redevelopment, generally speaking, because I am sure that the words "revenue producing" are not

being used here in the sense that ratepayers would be moving in to the development and would join the band of those who pay rates.

Mr. Speir: Rents.

Mr. Bell: In respect of rents I can understand it, but—I shall be glad to have confirmation on this from the Parliamentary Secretary—it cannot include the prospect of rates being paid. That cannot be part of the meaning of "revenue producing."

Mr. Speir: Or a capital sale.

Mr. Bell: A capital sale and rents certainly, but not the prospect of increased rateable value, which cannot be treated, in my confidant view, as revenue producing, and, therefore, one is thrust back to a very much more normal commercial view of what is revenue producing. That, of course, can be a matter of opinion. What is the criterion to be here?
The words in the Bill relate to a "revenue-producing" development. In the nature of things, I suppose that cannot mean one which is producing revenue at the time, because if that were so there would be not much justification for the power in Clause 7. If it is one of which there is a prospect that it will become revenue producing, then, first, I think, that has to go into the Bill. It is a drafting point and a matter of argument perhaps, but it has to be defined somehow.
Secondly, someone—I suppose that it would be the Minister—would have to exercise a second judgment on this, because one has known of schemes promoted by local authorities, and even by Governments in the past, which were described in the most glowing terms as prospectively revenue producing, but which did not turn out to be so by any means in the end. I do not think that any local authority will embark on the growing of groundnuts in East Africa. That might be outside its scope, but that is not a bad illustration of how something which may be considered to become revenue producing can come badly unstuck.
I am sorry to have made my speech rather a catalogue of points of difficulty, but I am sure that my hon. Friend will appreciate that I am not showing any


hostility to his Bill. He has put forward a Bill which is a collection of individual proposals to reform the existing law of local government, each of which is really quite disconnected and separate from all the others. By their detailed character they invite interrogation and scrutiny, and I suppose that in that respect his Bill might be described as one for Committee rather than Second Reading. There are not many questions on general principle that a rise.
In general, I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing the Bill forward. I am sure that it will be a very useful Bill and I can promise him my help and, I am sure, the enthusiastic help of many hon. Members on both sides of the House in getting busy on his Bill in Committee, changing it almost beyond recognition and making it an even more useful and commendable proposal than it is at present.

12.8 p m.

Mr. G. W. Reynolds: I was wondering which of the other eight Bills on the Order Paper the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell) was speaking against. He has made a number of useful comments on this Bill. I should like to add my congratulations to those of the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, South to the hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Speir) for bringing forward a Bill of this nature which, in my view, in so far as a Private Member's Bill on this issue can be, will be of considerable use to local authorities of all kinds.
The Bill could clear up quite a number of points which have been worrying some of the local authority associations for many years, and also help from an administrative point of view. I welcome the proposals in the Bill. I can think of one or two points upon which hon. Members might like further elucidation and there are some additions and minor changes which might be suggested during the Committee stage discussions. But, in general, I welcome the Bill and hope that the House will give it a Second Reading.
I was a little concerned at the way in which the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, South was advancing his arguments about Clause 1. I got the

impression that the hon. Gentleman was of theview—no matter what he said about the hard workers, and the kicks and no ha'pence received by individual members of a local authority—that some sort of check should be applied to make sure that local councillors, having discussed local problems in the town hall for a long period, might not spend time discussing the same matters again in conference at a seaside resort—with a resulting waste of considerable sums of the ratepayers' money—and therefore we should look closely at the matter.
It is argued that if the check that the consent of the Minister has to be obtained before delegates may be sent to conferences is removed, it should be replaced by other checks. There are already further checks in existence. For county councils, a vast majority of district councils, and, unfortunately, a growing number of borough councils, the position is that the accounts are subject to a district audit. If a district auditor considered that a council was spending an excessive amount of money in sending too many representatives to conferences or sending representatives to conferences on matters which he considered outside the normal work of the authority, he would have no hesitation in drawing the attention of the council to his point of view. It would be rather unwise on the part of any local authority to persist in that practice, and involve itself in excessive expenditure of that nature, after such an indication from the auditor.
There is a further check that every penny paid by a local authority, whether in respect of travelling expenses, subsistence expenditure or anything else, must be entered in a special book by the clerk of the authority, and the book is available for examination. During the normal office hours any ratepayer may visit the offices of the clerk, or the treasurer's department, or whereever the book may be kept, and demand to inspect it. That is possible under the appropriate provision of the Local Government Act, 1948. In this way a ratepayer can see exactly how much money has been expended and the way in which the expenditure has been occurred. Members of local authorities must remember that this book is bound to be examined. I think that it would be helpful if more people took


advantage of this opportunity to look at these books. If they did, the occasional unfortunate episode which occurs when a district auditor has to draw attention to claims made by some person would be less likely to happen, although it is right to say that such things do not happen often.
There is also a check in the sense that the membership of a local authority may be anything from about 12 to 140, and surely it would be very seldom, if ever, that a local authority which was spending money wrongfully, or was spending a lot of money on sending representatives to conferences, would continue to do so without some of the councillors kicking up a public row about it. One cannot accept the idea that even a small council would be able to get away with such a course of conduct for very long without some objection being made and questions being asked. I would go further and say that if there were a council which spent large sums of money and no one raised any question about it the electors could eventually alter the membership of their local authority if they were not satisfied.

Mr. Ronald Bell: Does the hon. Member think there would be any objection by the councillors if the visits to conferences were being shared out fairly among them?

Mr. Reynolds: That is possible, and that is why I say that I think that, were it the case, the area would have the type of local authority it deserved. But in the last resort there is the check exercised by the ratepayers, at least every three years, and so I feel that there are adequate checks and safeguards in this respect.
We trust the elected members of local authorities to spend millions of pounds, on behalf of the ratepayers, on education; on running one-third of the National Health Service; in the provision of well over 2 million houses which have been provided since the end of the war—one could go through the whole range of local authority services involving the expenditure of about £1,600 million every year, and a large amount of capital expenditure as well. That is done with the normal checks

and surely those checks are adequate to deal with the comparatively trivial amounts spent on sending a few people to conferences which take place at some of our seaside resorts in the early spring and the late autumn. No one is able to attend a conference at the end of June or July, or over the August Bank Holiday period. The conferences are usually held from Tuesday to Thursday, or Friday, during the colder periods of the early spring and late autumn.
I am in complete agreement with the provisions in Clause 2 about which I do not intend to speak because I notice there is present on the benches opposite another hon. Member who tried during the last Session to promote a Bill of this nature; and no doubt he will have something to say on the subject.
The provision allowing local authorities to issue bonds will, I understand, extend to all local authorities the power which is possessed by many authorities already under the provisions of local Acts. In fact there is a model Clause in existence which may be used by any local authority desirous of using this power. The Clause can be inserted into a local Act. It has appeared about 160 times in legislation approved by this House and so I do not think that it would be questioned. If such power has been secured by means of a model Clause by at least 10 or 15 per cent. of the local authorities, I think that there is a great deal to be said for putting the matter in order and enabling other authorities who desire to do so to make use of that power.
I cannot believe that a large number of authorities would make use of this power. There exist other means of raising money which, in the long run, would prove to be cheaper and more effective; and they might be used by councils for raising money for capital purposes instead of the method of issuing a large number of bonds of what might well be a comparatively small value. While there is money available on the mortgage market in sums from £5,000 upwards at a reasonable rate of interest, that will be taken advantage of by most local authorities under present Government policy. But there may be some local authorities which could use this method with advantage and I believe that they should be given the opportunity to do so.
Clause 7 refers to matters which have caused a considerable amount of discussion in local authority circles in the last few years. Its provisions would apply to a local authority with a revenue producing asset—I agree with the point of view of the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire. South on this matter that rate income itself could not be considered a revenue producing asset. The real trouble arises when a central area of redevelopment or a large scheme of one kind or another—multi-storey flats for example—includes commercial and other property being put up by the local authority as part of a large general scheme. The authority has to borrow huge sums of money for the purchase of land and to carry out the demolition of existing property. These sums may run into millions of pounds, and from the day they are borrowed the interest charges have to be paid and under the present circumstances provision must be made for the repayment of the capital sum.
A council may have to bear the interest charges and the redemption of the capital sum for any period up to three or four years before the occupation of the new premises—be they offices, shops, blocks of flats or supermarket, or whatever form of property is provided. There is no income from this property during that time, and so the authority must carry the cost by levying a rate on the inhabitants of the area who will benefit eventually from the development. This is not the way in which the commercial developer operates. He borrows the money in some way or other. I am convinced that, in circumstances of this kind, if the commercial developer has found it convenient to operate in that way, almost certainly it is the best way; and I see no reason why local authorities should not be given freedom to secure money in that way.
The Acton Borough Council, of which I am a member, recently purchased a tam factory—or perhaps I should describe it as a preserve factory—formerly owned by the Co-operative Wholesale Society. People are not eating so much bread and jam in these days, and so the factory was no longer required. The council purchased it for £460,000. I should like to congratulate the Ministry, because we received loan

sanction three weeks after the application was submitted. That is the shortest period that I can ever remember elapsing before such sanction was received, especially in respect of a loan for land costing £133,000 an acre for housing purposes. Having received the loan sanction and having paid £460,000 for the property, the council found itself in possession of an empty factory soon to be demolished.
It will be at least two-and-a-half years before the first of the 100-odd flats is erected. In the meantime, the people of Acton have to find £32,000 a year by way of interest and debt charges needed to purchase the site. Next year the charge will be even greater because we shall have to pay interest charges and redemption on the money for the contractors. Probably it will be £45,000, which will be completely unremunerative debt charges on which no income will come to the local authority. The income in future will come from rates and the magnificent annual subsidy from the Exchequer amounting to £200 per flat, so the income can include, not only rents, but large Government subsidies paid to the local authority.
A penny rate in the Borough of Acton in a few weeks' time will produce £27,200, a very substantial sum of money. At present sums of this magnitude have to be found for interest on capital which has been borrowed for central area redevelopment and large housing schemes. In certain circumstances it is exceedingly difficult for local authorities to carry out central area redevelopment. This Clause will make it easier for them and it will give them some advantages which at present are enjoyed by commercial developers. If the commercial developer can do it in this way, I am convinced that the local authority should also be allowed to do it.
I welcome the general provisions of the Bill and I hope that the House will give it a Second Reading. There are one or two points I should like to look at in Committee, but on the whole I think that in a number of small ways it will be of advantage to local authorities of all kinds.

12.21 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Kershaw: I, also, welcome this Bill and hope that it


will get a good passage through the House, in particular because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Speir) was kind enough to say, I had—and I still have—a small Bill on the stocks dealing with the same point as is dealt with in Clause 2 of this Bill.
My Bill was introduced last Session and was wandering happily through the jungles of our procedure when it was accidentally shot down by an hon. Friend who thought that he was objecting to the Deer (England and Wales) Bill, which is second on the Orders of the Day for today. My Bill has been revised and again stands on the Order Paper. As the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Reynolds) was kind enough to mention, he is one of its supporters, as, also, is the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Skeffington), who was present in the Chamber a short time ago.
I feel that I owe to the House a short explanation that I do not think that it will be necessary to go further with that Bill, the Local Government Act, 1948 (Amendment) Bill, because of the provisions of Clause 2 in the Bill which is before the House at present. The object of my Bill is also to cover the subject in Clause 2 of the Bill now before the House and to make it possible for a contribution to be made from one local authority to an enterprise carried on in the geographical area of another authority. Stroud Rural District Council wished to contribute to a blind workshop which was in the Stroud Urban District Council area and such a provision would have made that possible.
I think that that is the answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell), who asked why these contributions had not been possible before. The contributions he had in mind were in respect of an organisation, of which he is a distinguished ornament, whose members ramble in South Buckinghamshire. The local authority is able to contribute to that organisation, although part of its activities are carried on outside the local authority's territory.

Mr. Ronald Bell: It is not the Ramblers' Society, a very admirable society though that is, but the Commons, Open Spaces and Footpaths

Preservation Society. That does not ramble. As to activity, I rather wonder how a footpath can be active in a local authority area. That is my philosophical doubt in this matter.

Mr. Kershaw: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for correcting me. I think that his organisation should become active in my constituency, where there are many commons and open spaces, and the problem of avoiding animals on Minchinhampton Common is a real one. This is a serious question, and any expertise and organisation which my hon. Friend can bring to the matter will be warmly welcomed.
The Clause which interests me is Clause 6, which gives power to a local authority to borrow by means of bonds. If the principle is that local authorities, without having to pass a local Act as hitherto, can raise money from their local ratepayers or whoever is interested, and if this is brought into full force by regulations which allow full range to this possibility, I foresee rather interesting developments.
To raise this money the objective will have to be one which will arouse the enthusiasm of local people. There will have to be something which is obviously for the public good and which people feel able to support. I dare say that this power could do a great deal for civic pride and the achievements of local authorities if it could be exercised in a fair and liberal way.
I wonder how far it would be possible to do really interesting things with these bonds. The obvious thing which occurs to one is the question of public halls and local amenities which could be built, financed, or improved as things which everyone in the locality uses. Invariably, in various areas there are features which, perhaps, have an historic interest, but have fallen into disuse. Canals are very expensive to clear or to block up, as the case may be. Local enthusiasm runs high on these matters, as I know in Stroud, where the fate of the Stroud Canal has caused great anxiety and perturbation from time to time.
Would this provision include the raising of money to undertake such works of local amenity? Would it go further? Every authority, not least the one in my area, is anxious about the provision of schools. Some have


schools on which a certain amount of money has been raised by private subscription, but which await the approval and a large contribution from the Minister of Education before the work can be started. Will it be possible for a local authority to issue bonds for the erection of schools in its area? I should not have thought that beyond the financial possibilities of such a scheme.
In Stroud, there is a Roman Catholic school which needs £50,000 more than the money which its supporters have at their disposal. It a large and important school which is needed in the district. Would it be possible for the local authority to sponsor the issue of bonds to raise the extra money? Then the project could start straight away. A Church of England school has for some years accumulated an important sum of money and the authorities are very anxious to start the building. I refer to the Tetbury Church of England Primary School. They have a site and a lot of the money, but they have not yet received the consent of the Minister to put the matter in hand because he has yet to supply a large amount of money for the project.
I do not rule out the possibility, either by the sponsorship of the diocesan council or the local authority in that area, of raising enough money to complete that school. Would that be allowed? If so, it would introduce interesting possibilities.
There is not only the question of ordinary schools. In most towns there is an art school and museums which are insufficiently endowed and whose curators are insufficently paid. Would it be possible to issue bonds to raise money for these purposes?
Many towns are most anxious to rebuild their centres, which are choked with traffic, old-fashioned and obviously need rebuilding.

Mr. Ronald Bell: Before my hon. Friend leaves the point of this centre—a purpose for which I can imagine bonds being useful—I hope that he is not suggesting that this would be a reasonable or proper way of going about local government financing, for example, raising bonds for building schools. That is an ordinary recurrent expenditure which ought to be borne out of the rates year by year and not by raising

loans. I am sure that my hon. Friend agrees.

Mr. Kershaw: I do not know that there is any rule of principle which ought to be called in here. How the money is raised to build a school which is badly needed is a matter, surely, of financial arrangement, and there is no question of great principle whether the money should come from the rates or from any other funds. I was asking whether money can be raised, under the regulations to be made by the Minister, for such a purpose. Is that the sort of purpose which the regulations will be designed to make possible?
If so, it raises very interesting possibilities. I have in mind not so much schools which are entirely publicly maintained, in respect of which I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South. It would be difficult to finance a publicly maintained school by means of private subscriptions. I had in mind schools which have already had some elements of private contribution towards them, such as denominational schools which are, as we all know, anxious to press ahead with their plans.
I was referring to the replanning of town centres. This is a matter which encourages civic pride in every town which has had the forethought to prepare plans, and I suppose that in every case the implementation of the plans is being held up, or the plans are having to be put into operation only bit by bit, because of financial stringency. If the citizens of any area decide that they want to get on with replanning the civic centre, will it be possible under the regulations for the necessary money to be raised by bonds? A local authority can make much quicker progress in that way than by proceeding step by step.
Will the regulations permit a general power, such as exists in American cities, to provide sums to beautify towns generally? I suppose that, like all financial administration, this needs to be well controlled. Will these bonds be issued for the greater prosperity, happiness and glory of the town concerned, or will they be specifically related to a project which is put before the ratepayers when the bonds are sold?
It is certain that it will be necessary to encourage the local enthusiasm of


citizens in order to sell these bonds. I have made this point already, but I make it again to emphasise that the size and character of local organisation will be very important. As the hon. Member for Islington, North said, we are not very likely to see county councils using this method of raising money. It is very unlikely that all the citizens of a county would consider that their interests were sufficiently engaged that they wished to contribute to one objective. Perhaps a bridge across an estuary, or some such project, would involve the interests of a number of local authorities, and it is unlikely that any one local authority would be willing to contribute towards that sort of project.

Mr. Speir: Derbyshire has already done it and has raised £2¾ million.

Mr. Kershaw: The point which I make is that, in general, it will be necessary that local citizens should have enthusiasm for the project which is put before them. If they are to have enthusiasm, then I feel that smaller local authorities are much more able to encourage this enthusiasm among their ratepayers than are large local authorities. To carry the matter to an extreme to illustrate the point, it is unlikely that the London County Council could find so many supporters of a single project that it would wish to undertake the project by private financing. On the other hand, a smaller and possibly rather isolated authority with responsibility only for one market town would find it not at all difficult to encourage the enthusiasm of its ratepayers in a project to improve the market place, or the centre of the town, or to beautify the town hall.
The size of the local authority in the future is, therefore, very important to this Clause, and in my opinion the smaller local authorities ought to be preserved, for they would have a greater opportunity of taking advantage of this Clause than would the much large authorities. That is only one reason why I believe that smaller local authorities in the country ought not to be submerged by being merged into larger authorities.
The Bill has the general support of hon. Members who have spoken. I have this morning received a letter from

the County Councils' Association, which also supports the Bill. I am confident that local authorities generally in the country will feel that it gives a greater elasticity to local government and that it will enable them to undertake work which hitherto they have wanted to do, but could not do. I very much hope that the House will give the Bill a Second Reading.

12.37 p.m.

Mr. Michael Stewart: I congratulate the hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Speir) on his Bill. It deserved, I think, a welcome a little less pernickety and cantankerous than that which was given it by the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell).

Mr. Ronald Bell: Pernickety, perhaps, but not cantankerous.

Mr. Stewart: That is a matter of judgment. In any case, it was pernickety.
The hon. Member for Hexham said that it was not a Bill which would involve local authorities in greater expenditure. That is true. But undoubtedly he will agree that it is a Bill which would empower them to some extent to engage in greater expenditure, and it might indicate a certain degree of courage on his part to put forward a Bill of this kind at this juncture. But I do not regard that as a condemnation of a Bill which gives local authorities in certain directions greater powers to spend than they have at present.
Against this one must set the small but not insignificant point that the Bill will save both local and central government a certain amount of unnecessary time and expenditure on correspondence spending 6d. in order to make sure that 3d. is not improperly spent. Whenever we can do that it is an advantage.
But there is a larger issue involved which comes out, I think, when one compares the differing views expressed by the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, South and my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Reynolds) about councillors going to conferences. I suppose that we could imagine a council which set to work to use its enlarged powers under the Bill to see that every councillor went to as many conferences as possible,


though I am bound to say that attending the jubilee conference of, say, the Public Cleansing Institution would not be my idea of Sybaritic enjoyment. One can imagine a council doing that, but such imagination bears very little relation to what, in fact, happens or is likely to happen.
I would point out that there are two main ways of preventing improper or extravagant expenditure by local authorities. One is restrictions imposed by Statute and enforced by the Minister or by the mechanism of audit. The other is the operation of public opinion in the locality. It is much healthier to rely on the latter wherever we can. If we take the view that it is our business in the House constantly to devise safeguards to ensure that no local authority could ever be extravagant, then the public in the localities will feel, when it comes to local elections, that there is nothing much for them to do about it.
I would rather see the powers which the Minister has over local authority expenditure relaxed somewhat, so that increasingly the public in the locality may say whether they want the rates spent, for example, on repairing the war memorial or any of the other purposes which has been mentioned. If councillors are attending conferences with what some ratepayers consider to be excessive frequency, we need not fear that that fact will escape comment in the local paper or in local conversations. The behaviour of councillors is usually subject to much more bitter and much sharper scrutiny than the behaviour of Members of Parliament.
Therefore, I welcome Clauses 1 and 2, which clear away certain unnecessary restrictions. However, there is one point about Clause 1 which I should like the promoter to consider in Committee. In page 2, line 5, there is this phrase:
a body of which the objects are wholly or partly political".
Is there already any legal definition of what these words in a Statute mean? Is the Association of Municipal Corporations a body whose—
objects are wholly or partly political
I should have thought that in the correct use of the word "political" it is. It discusses matters which are political in the proper sense of the word. More-

over, it expresses policies from time to time.
Not long ago, the Association expressed views on the London Government Bill which were agreeable to the present Government. If the Association had expressed views hostile to the present Government, everybody would have said indignantly, "But this is party politics". Since the Association has agreed with the present Government, comment of that kind has not been so sharp. I do not object to a body like that expressing views on policy, but I should have thought that that makes it a body whose objects in the ordinary sense of the word are partly political.
I should have said that the same is true of the Town and Country Planning Association. Nobody would conceivably describe that as a partisan body, but it is a body which considers public affairs and from time to time makes statements expressing the view that this course rather than that should be pursued. That is the proper meaning in the English language of the word "political". Action of that kind is political action, but it is not bodies of that type which the hon. Member for Hexham wants to rule out. He wants to rule out bodies which can definitely be said to be partisan, which not only express views from time to time on certain subjects, but which pursue a coherent and consistent line of policy allied with one particular philosophy rather than another. I think that the word "partisan" rather than "political" is what is wanted, but the point needs to be examined in Committee.

Mr. Ronald Bell: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has raised this point, because I wanted to raise it in my speech but thought that I had talked for long enough. Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that even the word "partisan" will not do, because "partisan" does not apply only to political parties? The Town and Country Planning Association is a propagandist body. It is a political body. It is partisan in the sense that it is designed to advance a particular point of view. Would not the hon. Gentleman agree with me, therefore, that what my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Speir) very properly has in mind is an objective which simply cannot be


attained by the drafting of an Act of Parliament?

Mr. Stewart: I am not sure about that. The Workers' Educational Association describes itself on its notepaper as "non-party political". It would be absurd for such a body to describe itself as non-political, but the phrase "nonparty political" describes it very well. I do not know whether that will stand up to Parliamentary draftsmanship. However, this point can be left until we are in Committee. I am not happy about the present wording.
I turn to Clause 5. Nobody need fear extravagant expenditure under this head, because the objects for which this new power can be used are stringently limited. There cannot, if I understand it rightly, be any object on which a council today either must or may spend money. Councils have to find fresh fields all the time. The hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, South was a little worried about this Clause, because he thought it would mean more to a parish council than to a county council.

Mr. Ronald Bell: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman again. I was not so much worried about it. I explained the difficulty of assessing it, except after fairly prolonged examination, because it obviously means three wholly different things according to whether a county, a rural district or a parish is being dealt with. I am not worried about it. I merely find it a little difficult to assess it.

Mr. Stewart: Similarly, when the Bill to abolish slavery in the British Dominions was introduced in the House of Commons, many years ago, its effect was very different on people who were slaves than on people who were already free. That is really the nature of the hon. Gentleman's point. He pointed out that some councils already have powers so wide that this will give them nothing. Others have powers so limited that this will give them a little more. This is in the nature of every liberating measure. Even when all the evaluation has been done, it will be quite clear at the end that there is not the slightest danger of local authorities being enabled to engage in extravagant or foolish expenditure as a result of the Clause.
Clause 6 embodies a principle which I should like to see very generally followed. If there is any power which certain local authorities have had for some time by virtue of local Acts and experience has shown that this power has been used by the local authority to the public advantage and to the satisfaction of its citizens, one should normally conclude that it would be a good thing to make that power a general power of local authorities. I am always in favour, wherever possible, of increasing local powers. Where there is the lesson of experience to draw on and when it can be said explicitly that it is a power which exists and has been widely used in certain cases, the burden of proof is on those who say that it ought not to be extended.
I am not sure that I altogether followed the argument of the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Kershaw) on this Clause. As I understand it, there is nothing in the Clause which would enable a local authority to do by means of loan anything which it cannot at present do by means of loan. Whether it were going to build a school or anything else, if the project today requires loan sanction it will still require loan sanction when the Clause is law. The only thing the Clause gives the authority is a different way of raising the money. Nor would it always occur that the bonds would be used for a specific project. I think that could be done, but as I understand it this could be used simply as an alternative to raising the money in more orthodox ways.
I suppose a local authority could, if it wished, when it was going to put out a bond issue, say to the public, "One of the reasons why we need to borrow money at all is A, B or C," and then list the things. That would mean something, clearly and patently, to the citizens. I remember once having explained to me the way in which new schools are built in the city of New Orleans. The authorities begin by having a referendum of the ratepayers to ascertain whether the local school board should be allowed to raise a loan for the purpose of building a school. In that referendum there are varying numbers of votes for the citizens according to the amount of rateable property they own. It is up to the local teachers' association to conduct propaganda during the referendum to persuade citizens to vote, "Yes". If the referendum is successful, the council then has power to


issue bonds to build a school and the teachers' organisations are supposed to go into battle again to help sell the bonds to the public. The marvel to me was that they managed to erect a considerable number of quite good schools.
Nothing as complicated as that is proposed here. Nor, as far as I can see from anything in the Bll, could these be Premium Bonds. If they could, it would add a certain amount of spice to the proceedings. In general, I welcome the provision, because borrowing by local authorities is a very important part of local government finance and one which is very little understood by the public at large. It is possible that the employment of this method would increase the number of people with some understanding of how a local authority has to run its affairs, and that would be to the public advantage.
On Clause 7, I agree entirely with the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North. I believe I am right in saying that local authorities can already use this financial procedure for certain purposes but that the number of such purposes is very limited. A spokesman of the Ministry told local authorities some little while ago that the Government hoped to extend it to development of city centres when a convenient legislative opportunity arrived, as it has now arrived. The overwhelming argument is that advanced by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North, that we know very well that this is the way that the private developer does it.
This seems to me to be an altogether admirable Bill and, although I have no doubt that some alterations will be made in Committee, I hope that it will have a speedy and successful passage.

12.50 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. F. V. Corfield): I wish to begin by adding my congratulations to those expressed to my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Speir) for introducing the Bill and for the manner in which he did it. If the House does eventually pass it it will be a worthy partner of the Litter Act and the Noise Abatement Act, both of which my hon. Friend has successfully brought to the Statute Book.
This Bill is a miscellaneous Measure, and, perhaps inevitably, it covers a wide field of amendments and extensions of

existing provisions. No doubt modest in itself, it seems that the Bill is generally welcomed by the House and I believe that it will be generally welcomed by those concerned with local government. My hon. Friend modestly said that he had not put into motion a wind of change, but he hoped that he had started a slight breeze. Certainly the breeze is in the right direction.
The Bill does a lot towards removing what in many cases have gone on being regarded as pettifogging controls, often costly in time and temper, and sometimes in administrative expense out of all proportion to any savings that might have been effected. The Measure is fundamental to making local government more local and, as the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart) pointed out, the real health of local government must depend on the basic control coming from the electorate rather than on the House of Commons being too fussy in relatively minor matters.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell) went through the Bill, I might take his remarks as the framework on which to hang my own and also to comment on matters raised by other hon. Members. I would remind the House, regarding Clause 1, of the limitations in the existing Local Government Act, 1933, and the London Government Act, 1939, on the type of conferences to which members of local authorities can be sent at the expense of their local authorities. The limitation is that the conferences must be called by bodies entirely composed of local authorities. As soon as a conference is either convened by an outside body or even includes outside bodies among those convening it, this rules out the power of the local authority to underwrite these expenses. I am sure that we should all regard that in this day and age as somewhat absurd, because we have seen in recent years an enormous extension of intelligent and worthy bodies taking an interest, and often conducting research, in the services for which local government is responsible.
It would seem absurd that we should go on with this old rule which in a way cuts off from sources of contact which could be useful people who are intimately involved in these services and keenly interested in giving good services to the public. Perhaps I could


best illustrate this by citing one or two of the well-known organisations which have been excluded but which would be included under the Bill. In housing, for example, there is the Institute of Housing, the Housing Centre Trust and the National Housing and Town Planning Council. In planning there is the Town Planning Institute and the Town and Country Planning Association. There are many others and there is a long list of most respectable bodies concerned with health and welfare—and if a conference of the Institute of Public Cleansing or of the Institute of Burial and Cremation Administration does not offer an exactly riotous weekend, I am sure that these are important matters for local government.
Moist people who have studied this problem agree that the whole problem of councillors' expenses throws up some extremely difficulty questions of balance. So often we find—apart from the obvious occasional abuse—that there will be conferences which are the subject of violent differences of opinion as to whether or not councils should be represented. But there is the other side of the coin when one comes to apply regulations which must be drafted in a general way to a particular case and when the result may appear utterly absurd. It is sensible, therefore, that we should allow the widest possible discretionary powers in this matter.
The hon. Member for Fulham considered the implications of the word "political". It crossed my mind that possibly the sort of things to consider are the various trade union and trades disputes Acts in which definitions appear of the "political fund". However, I was glad that he mentioned that the word "political" today is used in a way which often amounts to an abuse of language. I am sure that hon. Members frequently get invitations from bodies which are clearly political but which assure one that they are not political and, in fact, urge one to keep off political subjects when making speeches. To do that is almost impossible, for there is practically no subject which has not in its true sense a political overtone. I find this curious desire to be non-political at least irritating and, sometimes, rather silly.
I welcomed the intervention of my own Member of Parliament, my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Kershaw), in which he made it clear that the sort of bodies he had in mind were the workshops for the blind. My hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South was concerned with a different type of organisation. Many local authorities join or pay a subscription to bodies such as the Commons and Open Space Preservation Society and other organisations which may be termed professional bodies because they get some information in return; the local authorities thus receive a service for the expenditure involved.
That is rather like, for example, subscribing to professional journals, and is different from the sort of body or organisation which my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham had in mind. My hon. Friend was thinking of a body which could be said to be serving the public but from which, whatever its geographical disposition outside the boundaries of the particular council, the local authority could nevertheless get value.

Mr. Ronald Bell: Is membership of or subscription to such bodies covered by an existing statutory provision or is it some inherent power in the Ministry to dispense?

Mr. Corfield: There is an inherent power in the various Statutes which cover the functions of local authorities. Under health functions, for example, it would be assumed that local authorities would be able to make contributions to certain bodies providing information; but I put that forward purely tentatively and I should not like it to be taken for granted without further checking on the matter.
Regarding the comments which have been made about Clause 3, one must come back to the fundamental approach to local authorities and realise that they are responsible bodies. I cannot believe that they will pack their committees with co-opted members in order to get a riotous weekend with a Burial and Cremation Society or any others. If we once take that sort of view the whole operation of trying to run local government and putting these sort of powers in their hands is probably wasting their time and the time of everybody else.
Perhaps it would be useful to the House if I sketched shortly the background to the relaxations of Section 228 of the Local Government Act, which enable my right hon. Friend to allow certain of these expenses which hitherto have required some sort of sanction and which in future under this Bill will not require sanction. The House will know that applications for sanction under Section 228 arise from the fact that if the Minister's sanction is given, no action by the district auditor arises. In my Department we have worked out that of the 1,350 applications under Section 228 last year, 90 per cent. would not have been required at all had this Bill been in operation. This gives some measure of the administrative saving, which is relatively modest, but it is the sort of sphere which can gradually get larger and larger until one finds a considerable number of people doing very little else but looking at this type of application.
As for Clause 5, on which inevitably there has been a certain amount of comment, I should remind the House, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham, that there is a similar power in Scotland, with a limit of a 2d. rate rather than a 1d. rate. It is admittedly subject to the consent of the Secretary of State but this, I think, is more attributable to the fact that the power was given 15 years ago and we have moved on since then with our ideas on how many of these things should require the Minister's consent. I can assure those who are a little concerned about the effect that this will have on spending sprees that the Scots have not used an awful lot of money under this power. I think it works out at something like ⅛th of a penny rate rather than a 2d. rate.
We should remember also that there are various other existing Statutes under which a local authority is empowered to devote up to a 3d. rate or a 6d. rate. The health resorts, far instance, may vote up to a product of a 3d. rate to advertise the attractions of the resort. Up to a 2d. rate can be devoted to making up the net loss of providing allotments. There are a number of matters of that sort, like the 6d. rate for helping the arts.
The House might be interested to hear the comments of a body which is respon-

sible for spending money on the arts. The Arts Council in its 1961–62 Report said:
Instead of providing the permissive 6d. rate per annum for the arts the Local Authorities are between them providing a paltry total which amounts to less than one-tenth of a penny rate. Even if they multiplied their contribution by ten forthwith they would still be furnishing no more than a sixth of what they are entitled to provide under the Local Government Act of 1948.
Therefore, it does not look from past experience as if this will mean a rush to find out on what a local authority can spend money, although, as the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Reynolds) has said, the product of a penny rate in certain parts of London can be a substantial sum.
Referring to Clause 6, the hon. Member for Fulham intervened to make clear, as is the case, that this is merely another method of borrowing which, as he and the hon. Member for Islington, North pointed out, has been widely used under private Acts and therefore it is a matter on which there is considerable local government experience. As the hon. Member for Fulham said, this is surely a source of experience of which we should make use, and it is sensible that as powers have developed under private Acts we should pick them up and give them general application, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham has done. This is a sensible way to approach the matter.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud must bear in mind that this will not open the flood-gates on a massive new source of money or that it will provide opportunities for borrowing, whether it be for a village hall or school, outside the realms of functions for which borrowing has been approved by the responsible Ministry. I entirely agree, however, with the hon. Member for Fulham that if on occasion funds for which borrowing can take place can be related to something which excites local public interest this is a good form of advertising the issue of the bonds. It is reasonable to hope that local people will take a special interest for that reason and will prefer to buy a bond rather than to use the Post Office or adopt some other means of saving which might be available.
This is a form of switching the small lender from one type of investment, such


as the Post Office or National Savings, to a more local type whether or not there is a label on the bond showing that it is for the hospital fund, the town hall fund, or an education fund, as the case may be.

Mr. Kershaw: Is not my hon. Friend foreshadowing what these regulations will be? This point surely depends on the scope of the regulations, and to say that Clause 6 does not extend the possibilities of raising money is to say that the regulations will strike the Clause pretty well dead.

Mr. Corfield: No. The matter, of course, will be subject to regulations, and the kind of thing that will come into the regulations will be a provision that the bond will have a name upon it and will not be a bearer bond. That is certainly our intention. The bond, however, will be transferable. My hon. Friend will appreciate that when we give a local authority power of this sort, the borrowing power must be looked at in the context of statutory provisions which govern borrowing generally.
I am afraid that I cannot hold out great hope to my hon. Friend that this will bring in a vast new source of lending or borrowing nor, as the hon. Member for Fulham said, will it suddenly make it possible to build schools which have been ruled out by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Education. There may well be other methods which my hon. Friend has in mind and which certain cities have been putting forward, but these have nothing to do with the question of the provisions in Clause 6.
On Clause 7 I was glad that the hon. Member for Islington, North described the advantages which might well accrue where we have either central redevelopment or comprehensive redevelopment generally, and the difficulties which arise under existing powers where there is a relatively long period of completely unproductive expenditure, and not only a period of no income but a period of maximum expenditure as well. This can result over a period of two, three or five years in a heavy increase in rates in order to carry that burden whilst waiting for the income to accrue. I entirely agree that when we call this income-producing we have not in mind the fact that rates will eventually be

paid. The intention of the Minister would be to ensure that, in the accepted sense, "income-producing" would mean producing a rent or profit or something of that sort.
But I warn the hon. Gentleman that; as we see it at the moment, straight housing projects would not normally be included because usually most housing authorities have already got a programme and the income from a recently completed project in a sense is helping to finance the "dead" period of the current programme. There may be exceptions, of course. One might have a relatively small local authority—for instance, the Scilly Isles—which probably has no continuous programme and no need for one and where a building a house is rather exceptional, happening only every four or five or even ten years. In those cases there is not this rotation. The same sort of problem arises in central redevelopment, which is something completely on its own. It happens about once in a century and it involves enormous cost.
I hope that I have answered most of the questions that have been posed, particularly those which it is suitable for me to try to answer on behalf of the Government. I join again with other hon. Members in welcoming the Bill, and I hope that the House will give my hon. Friend full support by giving it a Second Reading. I once more congratulate him on a Measure which I believe will be really useful and will, in its way, help the wheels of local administration to go round a little easier than they would do otherwise. That must always be a welcome and useful operation.

1.11 p.m.

Dr. Alan Glyn: I should like to add my tribute to those paid to my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Spier). Now, alongside his work for noise abatement, which has removed a certain amount of noise in my locality, and his Litter Act, which has helped to clean up our streets, I am glad that we have something a little more concrete in allowing a local authority even wider scope for improving amenities.
I was interested to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell) and the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart) refer to the word "political". I do not think that even if we were to insert the words "party political" this term is really


capable of interpretation in a Statute. I was also interested to hear what my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary said about the considerable administrative savings that this Bill will produce by removing the necessity in many cases for a local authority to get loan sanction.
This is a very complex Bill and my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham is to be congratulated on it. Indeed, it seems to go far afield, including, in Clause 13, the whole of the Scilly Isles.

Mr. Speir: If they want it.

Dr. Glyn: Yes, if they want it. The Bill comes at a time when public attention is particularly focused on the revaluation of rating and it will involve expenditure. But I feel that one should learn again from this that it is really up to the local residents and ratepayers to ensure that their local authority has sufficient brake on unnecessary expenditure. As my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary pointed out, one cannot lay down in advance exactly what people will do. We must leave some scope to the local authorities and in the last resort to the local electors.
Clause 7 is an exciting Clause in that it puts local authorities, to some extent, on the same footing as private enterprise, and I feel that it may help not so much the larger local authorities, where there is always a float of money, but perhaps the smaller local authorities in enterprises of a particular nature for perhaps the first time.
A certain amount has been said about trips to the seaside and even trips abroad. Here again, one must trust to the sense of the public. Admittedly, this opens the gate—or legalises, which may be the more correct way of putting it—certain expenditure for councillors and, indeed, for co-opted members and members of the staff. But it really is up to the local authorities to say what is or is not reasonable expenditure.
The hon. Member for Fulham said that sometimes these courses were not particularly pleasurable, but that, perhaps, depends on the seaside resort in which they are held, and not so much on the nature of the subject. One frequently sees councillors who are not all the time in the council chamber, but on the promenade, in the sun. These are things we cannot interfere with in detail.
The question of bonds raises an important and interesting issue, because the average person's investment is usually restricted to things like the Post Office and building societies. One of the advantages of the Bill would be to enable local people to invest in their own councils. Thus, they would have not only an interest as ratepayers but as holders of capital. That would be of great advantage. We must make it clear, however, that if bonds are raised for a particular purpose, such as the improvement of a civic centre, they will stand pari passu with other local government securities and are not secured merely on that unit for which the money is being used. I believe that this will be a really useful advance and encourage people to take a further interest in their local authorities.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Kershaw) said that this would possibly be a great help in encouraging civic pride, and I am sure that he is right. There are many societies. In my constituency we have just started the Clapham Society, the desire of which is to maintain and look after some of the local historical monuments. Perhaps this is an activity in which some local authority money may be used so as to improve local amenities. Perhaps a central street or a shopping area or same other project may be improved with great benefit to the local inhabitants.
Mention has been made of education. But I believe that this is not a matter for which the Bill is really fitted, except perhaps for the improvement of halls or amenities of some church schools.
I do not wish to detain the House any longer. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham on a very useful Measure and join with many hon. Members in saying that the correct regulator in these things is not so much the Minister as the ratepayer and the local council. They must exercise some form of responsibility in these things and not have to be controlled centrally by the Government. I believe that the issue of bonds will give greater opportunity for participation by local ratepayers in their own local affairs.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 38 (Committal of Bills).

DEER (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

1.19 p.m.

Mr. Jasper More: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
This Bill has a background of some length and antiquity which I think it might be of advantage to the House if I were briefly to summarise. From the earliest times of our history the preservation and conservation of the wild deer of this country has been a preoccupation of government. In a fascinating work of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I published in 1598 and entitled "Manwood's Forest Laws" we read a summary of the law as it then stood. The law was then based on the conception of the forest which was described as
a certain territory of wooded grounds and fruitful pastures".
That was conceived as a shelter fox the—as they were called—wild beasts of the forest, which were specified as including the hart, the hind, the hare, the boar and the wolf.
Even from the times before the Norman Conquest the hunting and killing of the deer and beasts of the forest was confined in principle to the Sovereign and to those licensed by him, and at various times in the Middle Ages Parliament took steps to see that discipline in the forests was controlled. For example, in a Statute passed in the reign of Edward I powers were given to the Royal officials to apprehend trespassers and, even, the citizen was laid under the obligation when needed to assist them by the venerable process of English law known as the hue and cry. In the reign of Henry VII a Statute was passed to prohibit hunting in a legal forest by night or with painted faces. That was declared to be a single felony.
Following the union of England and Scotland interest in the deer as such shifted, rather naturally, to the northern kingdom, which had always had a so very much larger stock of the red deer, but the deer population of England and Wales was still not ignored by Parliament. Both in the reigns of George I and George III Statutes were passed on the

same lines as those of Edward I and Henry VII, emphasis being again laid, rather strangely, on those who sought to tresspass with blackened faces or otherwise disguised.
I cannot claim to have made completely exhaustive researches, but my impression is that those ancient Statutes have, at any rate in substance, been now replaced by a Statute which is over a hundred years old, or by certain Sections of that Statute, namely the Larceny Act, 1861, to which I ought, perhaps, briefly to refer. Section 12 of the Statute prohibits the stealing of deer in an unenclosed forest. Section 13 similarly prohibits the stealing of deer in an enclosed forest or deer park. Section 14 imposes penalties for being in possession of venison, deer skins, and so on. Section 16 provides power to seize guns and weapons used in the commission of such offences.
During the last hundred years Parliament has done very little in this field, and so far as I have ascertained there are only two other Statutes which affect the subject of deer at all. One of them is the Protection of Animals Act, 1911, which is concerned almost entirely with domestic animals and only incidentally with wild animals. The other is the Agriculture Act, 1947, one Section of which, I think Section 98, puts certain obligations on owners and those who are entitled to kill or destroy deer if they are doing damage to crops.
While Parliament has played little part over the last hundred years conditions both in England and Wales and Scotland have undergone serious changes in a number of respects. First, I think that it will be remembered that the years of the war and the post-war years, when food was so short, created obvious temptations to an increase of poaching.
Secondly, the tree planting programme which was initiated after the First World War and continuously developed now for something like forty years has created, both in England and Scotland, a greatly extended afforested area which provides natural shelter for deer and should, normally, lead to an increase of the species.
Thirdly, the mere fact of the tree planting has created many more targets, so to speak, for deer damage, for it is the small tree which is perhaps most


vulnerable in this respect; and that has been paralleled in the great increase of arable cultivation, where, again, deer, as we know, can be very destructive.
The fourth thing which I think I should mention is the very great increase, particularly during the last fifteen years, in the number of gun licences. There are now a very greatly increased number of weapons in private hands, and it is inevitable in such circumstances that the temptation to use these weapons should be yielded to.
It was largely on that account that matters were brought to a head and the Government decided that some investigation should be made. What the Government did, as hon. Members will remember, was to set up in or before 1951 a Committee on Cruelty to Wild Animals, a Committee which we know now generally from its chairman as the Scott Henderson Committee. That Committee produced a Report with which many hon. Members will be familiar and which, I think it is not untrue to say, constitutes now a veritable bible on the whole of the subject of wild animals, and among them the deer. A separate section of that Report is concerned entirely with deer in this country, and I think it fair to say that every aspect of the subject was exhaustively investigated.
I do not think that it is necessary that I should go in detail into the recommendations which that Committee made. The last two of them are very germane to this Bill. The first of them was that all methods of deer killing in the nature of snares, traps, poisons, and methods of that kind should be prohibited as constituting an obvious source of unnecessary suffering and cruelty. The second one was that some means must be devised of control over and prevention of long-range shooting at deer.
It was clearly in consequence of the recommendations of the Scott Henderson Committee that the Government decided to take action. The Government decided, I think naturally, to take action first in the kingdom where deer bulk more largely in the public consciousness, namely. Scotland. In 1959, they introduced the Deer (Scotland) Bill, which became law in that year. I think that I should very briefly summarise the provisions of that Act, as it is in so many

respects relevant to this Bill I am presenting today.
The first 20 Sections of the Act dealt with a problem which is not directly relevant to England and Wales. The big problem in Scotland was the conservation and control of the red deer. Without going into the details of the Scottish Act, that was done by setting up a commission for the control of the red deer, which has now been in operation in Scotland for some three years. The remainder of the Act, which extends to about 30 Sections, is very relevant to the Bill I am now presenting. The object of it, as it is of the Bill which I am presenting, was the avoidance of unnecessary cruelty to the wild deer and at the same time the conservation and control of the various species.
I think that it might be an advantage if, when I go through my own Bill, I refer Clause by Clause to any corresponding provisions of the Scottish Act. Broadly speaking, the Scottish Act has Sections to prevent poaching, to create a close season for night shooting and to prohibit gilling except by shooting, and there are ancillary provisions with regard to offences committed by two or more persons, unlawful possession of firearms, powers of search and seizure, forfeitures, and so on. There is also in the Act an important exemption Clause which to a large extent is repeated in this Bill and on which I should like to talk at more length when I come to it in my Bill.
The Measure having passed into law in 1959, the question remained of what was to be done with regard to England and Wales. That question was raised in another place in 1960 by Lord Winterton. Several noble Lords participated in a debate at the end of which the subject was reviewed at some length on behalf of the Government by Earl Bathurst, and he concluded with some words which are so relevant to my Bill that perhaps I might read them. Referring to the bodies which were interested in the subject, Lord Bathurst said:
I wish them well and hope that all those bodies, whether they be farmers, landowners, the animal preservation societies or individuals, will be able to get together one day and find lines upon which to agree … the solution … must be practicable and enforceable …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 23 June, 1960, Vol 224, c. 641–2.]


To the bodies and individuals concerned in this matter, those words were a challenge. That challenge has been accepted, and the Bill is the result.
This is the first occasion when I have had the good fortune to be able to introduce a Private Member's Bill. Though I count myself fortunate in that, I want at once to disclaim any credit for the conception or contents of the Bill. The preparation of the Bill has been a matter of great labour and great time and has occupied the attention of a great number of public-spirited people. I think that it is right that I should mention some of the bodies which have most powerfully contributed to bringing it into its present form.
First, the sponsor of the Bill has been the British Field Sports Society, which, as its name implies, has always been concerned about the welfare of our wild animals. It has been supported by the Forestry Commission, which bulks increasingly largely in this whole subject for the reasons that I have mentioned and because, probably more than any other body, it comes into daily contact with our deer. Others who have given help and time to this are the Nature Conservancy, the Council for Nature, the Flora Preservation Society, the Universities' Federation for Animal Welfare, the National Farmers' Union, the Country Landowners' Association, the Devon and Somerset Staghounds and the New Forest Buckhounds. In addition, a large number of individuals have given their help.
It is always invidious in a matter of this kind to mention a single name, and one knows the risks involved, but if I may on this occasion take that risk, I should like to mention the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Kimball), who has given unlimited time and trouble to the preparation of the Bill and has been of immense assistance to me in bringing it before the House. There will be one later important acknowledgment which I hope to make when I go through the Bill.
The species with which the Bill is concerned are set out in the Schedule. We have, first, in England the red deer, which is the finest and largest of the wild mammals living in this country. Though much less extensive in England than in Scotland, it is assumed here to be indigenous,

living mostly in Devonshire, and to a smaller extent in the Lake District, and it is thought now to have a population of something under 1,000.
Next is the smaller and perhaps more familiar roe deer, also believed to be indigenous to this country. Thirdly, there is the fallow deer, which it is generally supposed was introduced into this country by the Romans as a semi-wild species, originally kept in parks, but in subsequent centuries in many cases it escaped. Fourthly, there is the imported deer known as the sika.
One of the principal matters with which the Bill is concerned is close seasons, and those four species appear in the Schedule in connection with the close seasons. I think that I can, therefore, go straight to the Bill itself because the close seasons are dealt with in the first Clause. I should like just to explain the principle under which the close seasons are framed. First, with regard to the hinds and the does the object is obvious—to protect them in the final months before the calves or the fawns are dropped and until the calves or the fawns are large enough to fend for themselves. So, referring to the Schedule, it will be seen in all cases that the close season for the hinds or the does is from the beginning of March to the end of October inclusive.
For the stags and the bucks the consideration is a wholly different one—namely, to give protection to them during the period when they are in velvet or growing their horns. Referring to the Schedule, it will be noticed at once that while close seasons are specified for the stags or the bucks of the red deer, the fallow deer and the sika, there is no close season specified for the roe buck, and that is because it is during the months when the roe buck are in velvet that they are apt to be doing extensive damage, particularly in the forests, and it has been thought necessary that they should not be protected in this way.
Clause 2 brings in a matter which is of no less importance, the question of a nightly close season. This is the first of the Clauses which follows the Scottish Act and will be found in Section 23 of that Measure. Hon. Members will, I think, agree that this is an obviously desirable provision, although I shall have more to say about it in connection with Clause 14 subsequently.
Clause 3 is, perhaps, the most important and also the most complicated. It tries to carry out in extenso the things which the Scott Henderson Committee obviously thought were the most important in regard to deer. It deals, broadly, with three different subjects: first, the types of shooting which are to be permitted; secondly, such other methods of killing as are to be prohibited; and thirdly, the use of vehicles.
The methods other than shooting are set out in paragraphs (a) and (b) of subsection (1). Also relevant are paragraphs (c) (vi) and (vii). The Scott Henderson Committee was emphatic that the use of traps, snares, nets, poisons and stupefying bait should be prohibited by law. That is what the Clause seeks to do.
Subsection (3) of the Clause deals with vehicles. This matter was of great importance in the Scottish Act and particularly in connection with the poaching which prevailed so largely after the war because, obviously, in many cases, vehicles formed an integral part of the operations.
Difficulties may be caused to certain interests by this attempted prohibition of vehicles. I am informed that complications may be caused for those who administer the Royal Parks and for those who have private parks. I want to make it clear, however, that the reason for these difficulties is that experience has shown that in some cases the most practical form of dealing with deer humanely and of shooting them as they must be shot is done by means of such things as Land Rovers, which can be used for driving and separating the deer. If, in Committee, it is possible to remove these objections to the Bill, I shall be more than willing that that should be done.
The provisions concerning weapons are the most complicated part of the Bill. Technical matters of some detail are involved. I wish at this stage to record the obligations of myself and of the sponsors of the Bill to Mr. W. H. R. Robson, past-president of the London Gunmakers Company, who has given us great assistance on the detail of what is here required.
The Bill specifies in Clause 3 the weapons which may not be used: first, rifles, and, second, shotguns. Shotguns

are referred to in paragraphs (i) and (ii) of subsection (1, c) and rifles are dealt with in paragraphs (iii) and (iv). The object in both these cases is clear. As regards shotguns, what is essential, obviously, is that the shot used shall be sufficiently large to cause instant and painless death. That is the object of the details set out in subsection (2), in which the different types of cartridges which can be used are specified, first, in relation to roe deer, and second, to deer of other species.
The question of rifles is more complicated. Hon. Members will see in paragraph (iii) of subsection (1, c) the formula which we have included to try to achieve the desirable result of painless death. I refer to the phrase "muzzle energy" as one which is, perhaps, familiar. I have been into this matter. It is a term which is accepted and well-known in the gunmaking trade and I believe that it will not cause any difficulty if it should have to be used as a basis for prosecutions under the Bill when it becomes an Act. The other point about rifle bullets is that they must be of the kind which tend to kill and not to wound That is the object of providing in paragraph (iv) of subsection (1, c) that these bullets must be soft-nosed, or hollow-nosed.
The following Clauses follow more or less directly various Sections of the Scottish Act. Clause 4 reproduces Section 24, Clause 5 reproduces, almost exactly, Section 25; Clause 6 reproduces Section 26; Clause 7, Section 27; Clause 8, Section 28; Clause 9, Section 29; Clause 10, Section 30; and Clause 12, Section 31. For that reason, it is not necessary for me to go into great detail on any of these provisions. They are all ancillary to the main objects of the Bill which I have so far set out, the object being to make it possible for the authorities to enforce the main provision of seizing firearms and other ancillaries used in illegal operations and to make the procedure of the Bill workable in courts of law.
Clause 14 is important and reproduces Section 33 of the Scottish Act. Whatever feelings one may have about the humanitarian arguments in favour of controlling deer, the fact has to be faced that much damage has been done, and can be done, to entirely innocent farmers, ley farmers, and so on, and that liberty


must be given to protect their property against depredations of that kind.
Clause 14 is in three subsections. The first is directed purely to the main object of the Bill, that is to say, to prevent the suffering of an injured or diseased deer, and permits anybody to kill a deer which is obviously in that state. Subsection (2) refers to the Agriculture Act, 1947, and preserves the necessary provisions of that in their present state. It is subsection (3) which is important to farmers and foresters, and I should like to make it clear precisely what it does and does not do.
What it does do is to say that in the taking or killing of a deer it is to be a defence against Clause 1 if the conditions of Clause 1 are satisfied, that is to say, the provision for a close season. It is not a defence against the Clause which deals with weapons. The owner or occupier concerned must also be able to prove that his action of killing or shooting was necessary to prevent damage. The fourth condition is that he must be able to show that shooting was the only practicable means of preventing that damage. Those provisions, broadly speaking, have been worked out on the basis of the Scottish Act, and I hope and believe that they are an acceptable compromise of all the conflicting interests in this matter.
Clause 15 would give power to grant licences for certain necessary purposes which might themselves be humanitarian, that is to say, it might be necessary on occasion for deer to be moved from one place to another for scientific or educational purposes. Authority has been given in certain cases to the Minister of Agriculture and in others to the Nature Conservancy to grant licences for such purposes. During the course of our discussions, it may be shown to be desirable to extend this licensing system to cover certain other matters, some of which I have already mentioned.
I have mentioned the Royal Parks and perhaps my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will say a little more about that aspect and also about private parks. What is essential is that the provision about weapons should be maintained. It is that which is important. If that is maintained, some system might be worked out to enable vehicles to be used in these parks.
In these rather complicated Clauses, reference is made to arrows, spears and similar missiles. In this country we have a number of honourable societies of bowmen and archers who are very much concerned that we should not interfere with their sport. It would be a matter of great regret to me if by any action of ours we were unnecessarily to do so. I cite the instance of a society which is local to myself, the Kidderminster and District Archery Federation, which is on the borders of my constituency and whose president is my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Sir G. Nabarro), who has expressed regret that he is unable to be present with us today.

Mr. George Thomas: Let the arrow speed on its way.

Mr. More: Anything which can be done to help bodies of this kind would be appreciated.
As I have already indicated, the Bill represents a great deal of self-sacrifice, labour, and substantial compromise of conflicting interests. I emphasise that the Bill is not directed to promoting any sporting interest; it is not directed to promoting any agricultural interest; it is not directed to promoting any forestry interest; nor is it directed to promoting any commercial interest. Conversely, it is not directed to restricting or interfering with any of those sporting, agricultural, forestry or commercial interests. What the Bill is directed to doing, and this is its dominant purpose, is promoting humanitarian interests. As such, I believe that it is a worthy Bill and I commend it to the House.

1.56 p.m.

Mr. George Thomas: I congratulate the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. More) upon the hard work which he has obviously put into the preparation of the Bill. I also congratulate his hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Kimball), who has done a great deal of the work behind the scenes.
Every Bill to protect animals receives a sympathetic hearing in the House. The hon. Member for Ludlow represents one of the most attractive parts of the whole United Kingdom. It is on the borders of Wales and it looks to the land of opportunity and it is only natural that the hon. Member should have introduced a Bill of this kind.
I wish only to say that I should have much preferred the Bill to have gone a great deal further. For the life of me, I cannot understand the mentality of those who find their enjoyment from getting dogs to chase deer until they kill them. It is such a cruel business. I wish that the Bill had made it illegal for these people to spend their money on keeping dogs simply for the purpose of chasing other animals. I wish that they could be prevented by law from this exercise of their sadistic desire.
Those are strong words, but I feel strongly on this subject. Every time I have seen a picture of a deer jumping over a cliff, or up to its neck in water, trying to get away from dogs which have been let loose upon it by human beings, I feel ashamed.
I shall not oppose the Bill which is designed to protect deer by providing for proper seasons and preventing even more cruel ways of killing them, but I earnestly hope that the day will not be long when the House will make it illegal for blood sports to be pursued in this country.

1.58 p.m.

Mr. Marcus Kimball: I should like first to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. Moore) on the most happy timing of the introduction of the Bill. This is the first Private Member's Friday since the close seasons in Scotland came into force, and it is most appropriate that today we should be discussing the control and mangement of deer in England and Wales. I also congratulate him on the happy timing because it is only I0 days since the formation of the British Deer Society, at Woburn last week, which gives the Bill its wholehearted support. I take this opportunity of thanking all those who voluntarily gave a great deal of time to producing this Bill.
My hon. Friend has given the full range of interests covered in this working party. In fact it covered everybody who was involved in the practical management of deer. These people gave evidence before a voluntary committee which had no statutory backing at all. They did not know what effect their evidence would have, or what effect their work would have, and they were dependent on getting someone like my hon. Friend to introduce this Bill.
Not being a Government-sponsored body, it lacked many facilities but it published a memorandum of evidence, which has been circulated to many hon. Members, giving the details of its deliberations with regard to many points, including those raised by the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. G. Thomas). I had the privilege of being chairman of the working party. The criticism has been made that it was a strange collection of bedfellows, and that an amazing number of interests were got together. The working party was sponsored and paid for by the British Field Sports Society of which the hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. J. Morrison) is chairman. This society is devoting its energies to seeing what can be done for the preservation and proper management of all the sporting animals in this country.
The House must face the fact that with the increase in forestry planting the whole face of the countryside is being artificially changed. It is being changed by motorways and by buildings. We have a very artificial society if we have to keep 50 million in this country, and one has to face the fact that if we are to have wild animals they must be properly managed. The balance of nature is being upset by these artificial things, and we therefore have to devise a means of providing for the proper control and management of wild animals.

Mr. Leslie Hale: What is the definition of wild animals? Recent writers say that they have undergone a biological change. According to experts on animals in Africa they have gone wild because they do not like being shot. When they found that Europeans with guns left half their comrades wounded and dying on the plains, they began to develop an antipathy to Europeans which was not natural. Does the hon. Gentleman say that a deer is an animal ferae naturae?

Mr. Kimball: Various species of deer have become naturalised in this country. To give these deer a chance to develop and survive, they must, as we have discovered in Scotland—and the Scottish Act has made this clear—be properly managed and the right numbers killed every year and a proper census taken. One of the things which the Bill shows is the great ignorance of the total stocks of deer in England and Wales. One of the things which the Scottish Act has


done is to make everybody take an annual census of the deer and then shoot one-twentieth of the total number counted in June.
The hon. Member for Cardiff, West rushed in to this discussion and raised the issue of hunting deer with hounds. Let us dispose of this argument once and for all. The working party came to the conclusion that the management of the red deer herd on Exmoor, as practised by the Devon and Somerset Stag Hounds, was one of the best examples of the proper management of deer in this country. The interesting thing is that during the period 1830 to 1855 when the Devon and Somerset Stag Hounds were not in existence the population of red deer on Exmoor, which is now about 1,000, fell to under 100. If, therefore, we want deer on Exmoor, we must have the Devon and Somerset Staghounds.
This was brought out pretty clearly in the evidence given to the Scott Henderson Committee which devoted paragraphs 207 to 239 of its Report to examining the whole problem of hunting deer on Exmoor. The Committee came to the conclusion in paragraph 419 of its Report that hounds were a useful and necessary method of controlling red deer on Exmoor, as without them the deer could not be destroyed or controlled without danger to persons or stock or in a way that would not cause suffering.
If the hon. Member for Cardiff, West tries to write into this Bill any prohibition about hunting with hounds, he will get himself into a frightful muddle, and I shall explain why. We all agree that the management of deer in woodlands as practised by the Forestry Commission in the New Forest is probably the most advanced, intelligent, and best management that we can find. The Forestry Commission in the New Forest has found it necessary to pay its keepers an extra allowance to enable them to keep hounds.
The hon. Gentleman has to face the fact that man is the most inefficient predator. A man with a shotgun is an inefficient predator. He has no hope of collecting wounded deer without the use of hounds which can be put on the trail of a wounded deer and bring it

to bay and draw the keeper's attention to it so that it can be properly dispatched. Hounds are very important to the proper control and management of deer. Scrope, whose book on deer stalking is perhaps the most authoritative work on the subject, devotes three chapters to the need for having properly trained and properly controlled deer hounds.

Mr. G. Thomas: Is the hon. Gentleman trying to tell the House that these hounds to which he refers in Devon and Somerset are there to keep the deer at the right number, or are they there because the hunters enjoy the pleasure of the dogs finding the animals, and enjoy the kill?

Mr. Kimball: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the Scott Henderson Committee which came to the conclusion that unless there were hounds on Exmoor there would be no deer.
Having disposed of that argument fairly, I deal now with the deer population of this country, because I do not think that the House realises how many deer we have in all. My hon. Friend gave the population of red deer. The total in the West Country, in the Lake District, in the New Forest and Thetford Chase is about 1,000. Roe deer in private woodlands and Forestry Commission land number about 20,000 bucks and does. Fallow deer, about 20,000 again. Sika deer, the imported Japanese deer, which is becoming indigenous and getting fairly strongly established, number between 300 and 500.
The Bill gives power to the Ministers to make orders at a later date for close seasons of many other species of deer. I think that the House may be interested to know just how many other species of deer have been imported into this country and now show signs of becoming firmly established. The first, and the largest group, the Mountjack or barking deer, is about the size of a springer spaniel, and weighs about 20 lb. These have escaped from private parks in the Midlands and are becoming established in Bedfordshire, Dorset, and north-west England. If it had not been for the bad winter, they would have increased considerably, but the evidence from the Forestry Commission is that this hard winter has taken a tremendous


toll of these very small deer. The estimate is that there are about 500 Mountjack deer now naturalised in this country, of which the Forestry Commission destroyed 10 last year.
Then there is the quite rare Chinese water deer, which is found in Berkshire, Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire. In some parts there are reports of quite a few American black tailed deer. The Mountjack, the Chinese water deer, and the American black tailed deer are left out of the Bill because we do not know enough about their breeding habits or when they cast their antlers. We know a little about them in parks, but it is not possible to make close seasons for them until we know more about them in the wild state. The Bill contains provisions enabling this to be done.
After the discussions that we have had on other sporting Measures it is important to make it clear that the Bill does nothing to make deer game. It does not extend the definition of game in any way. I must warn the House that under Section 4 of the Game Licences Act, 1860, a game licence is required for shooting deer, rabbits, snipe, woodcock and other animals with which we are familiar. My hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow has dealt with the point about deer in private parks, and how they are preserved and protected under the provisions of the 1861 Larceny Act.
I now want to say a little about the feelings of the working party on the whole question of close seasons. Hon. Members will probably be familiar with the Bill that the University Federation on Animal Welfare decided to introduce in another place last Session. It kindly agreed to withdraw that Bill in order to see if we could reach agreement on a much more comprehensive Measure—which I submit the present Bill is. That Bill gave great prominence to the whole question of close seasons, but the more we studied the problem the more convinced we became that it was nothing compared to the problem of the way in which deer should be destroyed.
At this point we must not compare conditions in England and Wales with those in Scotland. The Scottish Bill deals with one class of deer that has been driven out of its natural habitat—the children of the mist, driven out into the high and unprofitable parts of

Scotland. This Bill deals with deer that live mostly in woodlands, which have much better feeding available to them, and which drop their calves and grow their horns at different times of the year.
It was equally difficult to obtain evidence throughout the United Kingdom about the times of calving and of casting of horns. If hon. Members have copies of newspapers published at about this time and in April of last year they may find in them pictures of the Badminton Horse Trials, showing the horses going round the course with fallow deer watching in the background, still with their horns. At the same time, we had evidence from a very distinguished estate agent that he had been in Essex the previous week and had found that the deer had cast their horns. This shows how difficult it is to try to fix the close seasons.
On the evidence available to us we came to the conclusion that in the case of male deer the important thing was to provide protection for them when they were growing their horns. Unlike what happens with other parts of the body, while this colossal length of horn is growing on the deer's head the blood supplying the nerves and everything else is on the outside. It is contained in the velvet covering which is on the horn while it is growing, and if the deer are disturbed and are made to rush through the undergrowth they are liable to damage this velvet, and this is followed by deformity and suffering. That was the background against which we fixed the close seasons.
It was not possible for us to do what was done in Scotland, namely, to provide a close season for bucks just after the rut. That is possible in Scotland because nobody wants to shoot deer at that time, because they are valueless. In England, however, most people try to reduce the numbers of deer—and they are considered by farmers and landowners as pests—during the time when the bracken is down and the leaves are off the trees, allowing the deer to be seen. That meant that it was not practical to provide for a close season immediately after the rut, and so we provided for the close season when they were growing their horns.
It was a tragedy that we could not come to a decision about the close season for roebuck, which do so much damage


to forestry plantations and private woodlands, and which have a different cycle from that of the fallow, Sika and red deer. They rut at a different time and cast their horns at a different time.
By far the most important part of the Bill is the weapons Clause. I will deal with the provisions about rifles first. Obviously, the best way of controlling deer is to shoot them from a seat high in the trees. From there it is possible to shoot downwards on their feeding grounds. The right deer can be selected, so that the job can be done properly and unhurriedly. One of the most effective ways of controlling roebucks is by calling them during the rutting season, getting them into the rides, and then shooting them. But even with these methods the roebuck will not be killed in the numbers required properly to protect forestry and farming interests.
Hon. Members may wonder why we arrived at the decision that only rifles with a muzzle energy of 1,700foot pounds or more, or a calibre of 240 inches or more should be legal. We did so because although we have no doubt that experts can kill deer with a ·22 or a ·23 rook rifle, a person who is not quite an expert and who is using such a rifle may haunch the deer, or hit it somewhere else in the body, so that the deer does not realise that pit is hit. It feels as though it has been stung by a wasp or a bumble bee and the person who has fired the shot does not know whether he has hit the deer.
The importance of using the foot poundage definition is that this is a measure of the punch with which the bullet hits the deer. Hon. Members who have stalked deer know that even if they are unfortunate enough not to hit the deer in the vital place, provided the bullet has sufficient punch there can be no doubt that the deer has been hit. The stalker knows that the animal is wounded, and that it is his duty to see that it is killed. But if it is hit with a ·22 bullet and is only haunched, it is not possible to know whether the deer is hit, because there is no reaction.
The working party received many representations from people who argued that smooth bore guns should not be allowed. I would refer hon. Members to the Report of the Scott Henderson Committee, which, in paragraph 211,

makes it clear that the use of smooth bore weapons for use against deer must be allowed. If we are to allow them, we must allow for the use of weapons with sufficient penetration. Therefore, we have provided that the gun must be a 12-bore gun, and that a 16-bore or 20-bore will not do. We had much discussion about the question of shot sizes, and carried out a good deal of research on the subject. I admit that if we are going to use a smooth bore weapon we should use one single shot—either a rifle slug or a spherical ball; one solid bit of buckshot.
On a well-known estate in my constituency, which has some of the best forestry in England, the keepers are issued with cheap Spanish single-barrelled guns, which are permitted because the owner has a firearms certificate. These guns and shot are issued to the keepers at Brocklesby, in order to control the deer. The snag is that this can be done only if a firearms certificate is obtained. The National Farmers' Union supports the Bill, but it could not support something which provided that the shooting and control of deer could be done only when a firearms certificate had been obtained. I do not want to draw a red herring across the debate, but I ask the House what it thinks about the issue of a firearms certificate. There is a good deal of unhappiness, uncertainty and dissatisfaction about the way in which these certificates are issued; about who has the power to say who shall have them, and under what conditions.
Because of the necessity for obtaining a firearms certificate, the spherical ball and the rifle slug are out. An article in this week's Shooting Times, by Kenneth Whitehead—one of our greatest experts on deer—makes the point that the Bill falls down by not insisting on the spherical ball and the rifle slug, as used on the Continent. He says that the Bill is wrong in that it lays down two different shot sizes for use against deer, and also that we should specify the exclusive use of the LG cartridge, with six pellets in it, for all deer, and that the SSG is a quite unsatisfactory cartridge for this purpose.
Anticipating this Bill, the Deputy Surveyor of the New Forest carried out some extensive experiments on using shotguns and shot sizes. This is the result of his experiments. I will quote from his letter:
I anticipated the Bill by issuing 'LG' to all the keepers in the New Forest last season,


instead of the usual 'SSG' … By Christmas I was getting complaints from the keepers to the effect that 'LG'
that is the cartridge with only six big pellets in it—
was not satisfactory and more wounded deer were resulting than ever before.
By the 31st January the keepers had used up all last year's stock of SSG and they were using only LG. During the last 15 days of the open season—the Forestry Commission already observe the close seasons laid down in this Bill—they used only LG and they had six wounded deer.
Because the Deputy-Surveyor of the New Forest had thrown doubts on the use of LG, we arranged, unofficially, so the House must take it for what it is worth, for several experiments to be carried out with shots of this kind. Present at these experiments were the vice-president of the British Deer Society, a member of the Council of the British Deer Society and the Deputy-Surveyor of the New Forest. As the result of these experiments, which were completed only on Thursday, long after the Bill was printed, it was discovered that when using LG, which the Bill lays down, with six pellets in the cartridge, only 47½ per cent. of all those pellets ever struck the target, or deer in a part where it was likely to kill them. Experiments were carried out with SG, special SG and SSG and the highest percentage of kills—that is the actual pellets that go into the stag to be certain of killing it—was with SSG, where 83 per cent. of all the pellets fired would in fact have killed the deer.
I would suggest to my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow, despite the agreement reached by the working party, the very strong feeling expressed by many of the working party and the arguments in favour of lethal balls and rifle slugs, that when we come to Committee we should consider having SSG perfectly ordinary buckshot used for all classes of deer to be shot. This would make the Bill simpler and would, I think, commend it to the House even more.

Captain Walter Elliot: Is there any reason for having a smooth bore gun to improve the chances of hitting in certain circumstances?

Mr. Kimball: Apart from the question of the issue of firearms certificates, and that a lot of people do not have firearms certificates and therefore do not

have rifles, the point about allowing the use of small-bore guns is that it is not practical or safe to use rifles. One can use a rifle in a densely populated area from a high seat shooting down, but on clear ground where there might be hounds or people standing around one has to use buckshot.
I want to deal with the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow—I am sorry my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Sir G. Nabarro) is not here—about archery. The working party went into the whole problem of archery in the greatest possible detail. I do not know whether hon. Members realise that the Royal Toxophilite Society's court is in the centre of London. When we began to investigate the problems of archery we asked the society whether we could use its court for a demonstration. Such is the division of opinion among archers, it was not possible to borrow the Royal Toxophilite Society's ground for this demonstration and we had to use the ground at the Duke of York's Headquarters. I give that only as an example to show the House how very divided the governing body of archery is.
The archery societies are divided into three—field archery, target archery and about 60 people, at the moment, who indulge in hunting camp archery, trying to shoot real deer. When we had the demonstration—unfortunately I was unable to go—at the Duke of York's Headquarters there was no doubt that with the proper broad-headed arrow one had the killing power and the penetration to kill a deer at 50 yards or even further. In fact, we were so impressed by the power of these weapons that I should have thought that it was for the House to say that if people are to be encouraged to use these weapons, which are every bit as dangerous as a rifle, they should be required to have a firearms certificate.
It is quite impossible for hon. Members, as they will find when they come to deal with archers, to get the governing body of the archers—in fact there are two governing bodies of archery and there is an argument about which is the governing body at the moment—to give a definite lead. The only thing that I could get from the chairman of the Grand National Archery Society was the very guarded comment that if the bow is to be included as a permitted weapon


in the Bill it would have to be clearly defined in regard to the draw weight and the arrow would have to be equally clearly defined as to the size and design of the head.
I should like to suggest to the House that when we come to Committee we should deal with the archers in this way: at the moment they cannot come as a body and say to us that this is the definition, this is the right kind of weapon, this is how we want to conduct our hunting archery, but it should be perfectly possible, at a later stage, if the archers could get together to produce a correct definition of the bows and the arrows that they want used with the blessing of the two governing bodies of archery, to include bows and arrows in the Bill subject to those definitions. I hope that the House will exclude them at the moment. I should add the very strong feelings expressed on this by the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare.
Having been on the working party, I am conscious of the tremendous part played by the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare. I take the point that the Federation made, that until we can be quite certain that there will not, as has happened in America, be a sudden swamping of the country with bows and arrows, we should exclude arrows. There is a gentleman in Perth who is manufacturing a cheap bow which he is trying to sell for hunting archery.
I agree that we ought to keep the ban on the whole question of crossbows which are being sold in this country for stalking. The hon. Member put the case for the archers and I was going to remind him that as long ago as 1139, one of the Popes forbad the use of the crossbow except against the infidel. I do not think that anyone would wish to assign our deer to that category.
The Bill deals with the problem of night shooting. The hon. Member must face the fact that if shooting takes place at night, the use of hounds must be allowed in order to chase wounded animals. The real objection to night shooting is the fact that if a deer is wounded, there exist no facilities for pursuing it. I should like to state the contrary argument which I consider very important. If it is proposed to kill deer to prevent damage, it is necessary to kill

the animals which are actually doing the damage to young grass or to seeds. And the way to get them is to shoot them at night when they are doing the damage. Against that argument there is the humane argument. Someone from the New Forest has said, "I heard 50 shots and I know that the person got only three deer." That shows to some extent the inefficency of night shooting.
The hon. Member for Ludlow dealt with the whole problem of deer killing and indicated that he will meet the substantial objections which have been raised. I wish to conclude by urging the House to give a Second Reading to this Bill and allow it to be discussed in Committee. Many hon. Members were amazed at the figures given by the Forestry Commission when the Bill was first mentioned; that 60 per cent. of all the deer killed in the Forestry Commission's woodlands last year had gunshot wounds in them. This shows the extent of the cruelty caused by indiscriminate shooting that goes on at the present time.
I realise that to many people this Bill seems like a compromise and that it does not go so far as the really keen stalker would like. On the other hand, these provisions will assist in educating people in the proper management of deer. We know very little about the correct management of the deer which live in the woodlands of this country. If this Bill makes it illegal to loose off number six shot at any deer which is in the vicinity; if it prevents keepers from loosening off if they just hear a noise in the undergrowth in the hope of getting a deer—if that sort of thing is made illegal, people will have to study the problem. They will have to find out more about the life cycle and habits of our deer and try to discover proper ways to control them. I have heard as a criticism of the Bill that its provisions would be difficult to enforce. But nothing would be easier than to examine the carcase of a deer in order to see how it has been shot.
I have obtained from the Forestry Commission details of the weapons clause governing the control of deer in West Germany where the Germans have a much stricter weapons clause, and lay down what kind of weapon and shot is to be used. People who have hunted in Germany will appreciate the high


standard of woodland management and stalking practices which obtains there. The provisions of this Bill are much more simple and the weapons Clause more clearly defined and I hope that the Measure will be given a Second Reading.

2.33 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Greenwood: I give this Bill a qualified and tepid approval and I shall be brief because I hope that there will be time this afternoon to devote to the Bill to be introduced by the hon. Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Iremonger). I hope that I show a proper sense of proportion when I say that, in my view, to protect certain racial minorities in this country from persecution is at least as important as considering whether archers should possess a firearms certificate.
I say that my welcome to the Bill is tepid and qualified because I share the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. G. Thomas) on this subject. Neither of us will be happy until we can get rid of deer hunting with hounds for the purpose of sport. The addition of the words "for the purpose of sport" is important. No one questions that there are times when it is necessary to use hounds for this purpose. But I feel that it is more likely to be an economic and efficient way to control deer if the hounds are followed only by a small number of qualified foresters or pest officers, rather than by a large number of people for their personal enjoyment. That is a fundamental difference which I think will divide hon. Members and which the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. More) cannot just brush aside as having been established once and for all by reference to the Scott Henderson Report.

Mr. A. R. Wise: Will the hon. Member make plain to the House how he would punish those persons who join in the hunt with his qualified murderers and turn up to run after or ride after the hounds?

Mr. Greenwood: I am too experienced a Member of this House to fall for that intervention. If the hon. Gentleman would like to refer to a Bill which I sponsored in 1949 he will find certain detailed proposals designed to that end.
I have said that my approval is qualified. Nevertheless, I do not propose to oppose the Bill. I do not wish to block it in any way. I think that it goes, at any rate, some way towards protecting the deer from some of the sufferings to which they are subjected at present Most of the points which one would desire to make may be made during the Committee stage and should not be made at great length in the House.
There is only one detailed criticism which I wish to make. It is with reference to the close season to which the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Kimball) referred in some detail. I wish to bring to the notice of hon. Members the criticism made by the National Society for the Abolition of Cruel Sports, which suggests that the close season in the Bill starts too late and that it would be more suitable if it began on 1st February. The Society says that hinds are liable to be hunted at present during February when they are in calf. It quotes Colonel Murphy, the Master of the Devon and Somerset Staghounds—a body which may have done more to ensure the ultimate abolition of deer hunting than any other organisation in the country—as having said, when questioned about a hunted hind:
Of course it was in calf … they always are at this time of the year … and of course it was exhausted … we do not catch them unless they are.
That statement by the redoubtable Colonel Murphy appeared in the Western Morning News on 22nd February, 1960.
I hope that during the Committee stage the sponsors of this Bill will be flexible in their attitude and be prepared to consider arguments for advancing the date of the close season from 1st March to 1st February. I hope to have an opportunity to discuss the matter on Committee stage and I will therefore content myself today with saying that I do not oppose the Second Reading of the Bill.

2.36 p.m.

Sir Gerald Wills: I wish to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. More) on having seized the opportunity to bring in this Bill and I should like also to congratulate him on the manner in which he introduced it. I wish to add my support to the Measure. I think it a considerable achievement that 10 widely differing


bodies of people should have been able to get together and produce such a Bill. They have reached unanimity, and in doing so obviously they have had to compromise. But I think that they have done it very well. I do not think that we shall return to the stage at which we wish to prevent people with painted faces, to which my hon. Friend referred, from going out to hunt the deer. But I am quite sure that this Bill will help to control deer in the country and prevent many undesirable practices which have happened in my constituency when deer have been shot at night, and which have grown up in the past few years.
I hope that this Bill will go some way to prevent such practices. I have no doubt that deer must be controlled. We all realise that they eat a great deal and a lot of things which most people wish to conserve. That is why it is a good thing to have such a measure as this. To me this Bill seems sensible and uncrankish. I do not like things which go to extremes in either way and I think that the provisions in the Bill represent a good way of achieving what is desired. I welcome Clause 2 which virtually bans snaring, trapping, doping, and other unorthodox and rather esoteric weapons such as the bow and arrow. Mention has been made of the crossbow and it would seem that the quarrel in connection with the crossbow exists as well as with the ordinary long bow. One thing which the Bill does not mention is blowpipes. Nevertheless, I think it wise to use the proper means to destroy deer when there are too many of them and when they are doing damage.
Some of my constituents take exception to the requirements to use L.G. pellets of ·360 size. I think the S.S.G. is a better type of pellet because I am told that the L.G. can do a lot of damage to the gun and not so much damage to the deer as it ought to. I am glad that night shooting has been made illegal. It may be difficult to prevent deer from damaging a crop, as envisaged in Clause 14 (3), if the deer spend the day in one place and, with the consummate judgment which deer have, go out to another place at night where they know that there is something to eat and eat it. That is bound to happen, and if one cannot shoot the

deer when they are eating at night it is difficult, but no doubt we can deal with that in Committee.
The Bill will do a lot of good. It has quite a few teeth in it. The powers of seizure and confiscation are good, for they mean that people will not take lightly the fact that they may have their vehicle, their weapons or other material confiscated if they infringe the provisions of the Bill. That is a good thing. I think that the Bill will prevent the irresponsible and dangerous shooting which certainly takes place in these days. I think also that it will prevent a large amount of cruelty which undoubtedly happens and which has been referred to by hon. Members. Because of all these things and because I think that in substance and essence this is an excellent Bill, I hope that it will receive a Second Reading and will go on to the Statute Book.

2.43 p.m.

Mr. Leslie Hale: I always listen to the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Kimball), in particular on animal life, with interest, fascination and some measure of enlightenment—and occasionally with some slight disagreement. I was fascinated today to find for the first time that hunting deer is a method of keeping up the number of deer, while hunting foxes is a method of keeping down their numbers and that both these methods are the only possible means of humanely, kindly, totally and generously achieving those objects.
I agreed a little with the hon. Member for Bridgwater (Sir G. Wills). I was a little surprised, in the country of the crossbow and the land of "the white company", to hear doubts about the effectiveness of archery and of the Royal Toxopholite Society—if that is the correct pronunciation of that rather curious combination of Latin and Greek words—

Mr. Wise: "Toxopholite" is not a combination of Latin and Greek. It is two Greek words.

Mr. Hale: No. We shall not have a philological argument, but we can settle that outside.
It is fairly well-known that the bow and arrow were the only means of exterminating game in Africa for a very long time and that the indigenous African Bushman still uses that means to great effect when he has the opportunity,


using a bentwood bow, or sometimes one made of the small Gemsbok horn and a small bow with stone-tipped arrows. It will be said that they are tipped with vegetable poison, but used on a lion at close range the wound must be disabling. He cannot wait for the poison to take effect.
I am always sorry to raise a note of dissent. We have heard a chorus of agreement with the Bill's objects. I shall say, first, good things about the Bill. It is extremely well drawn; it is an informative Measure with a cover note as a precis in the Explanatory Memorandum. I wish the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. More) would pass on to Government Departments the fact that if we could have more Bills drawn as well as this it would help very much. Roughly speaking, however, it represents the sort of Bill to which I take an immediate and intense objection. Point No. 1 is that it is limited in scope and limited so as to exclude that particular form of deer killing which, rightly or wrongly, expertly or inexpertly, many people feel very emotional about and many people feel should be the subject of legislation.
Point No. 2 is that it would create a whole new series of offences and, presumably, would add to the already diverse state of our criminal and magisterial law. On the other hand, there is this to be said for it, that, so far as I know, no one interested in the subject has criticised its provisions, except to say that they ought to go further. The hon. Member for Ludlow presented it with obvious sincerity, and obviously after considerable knowledge. The hon. Member for Gains-borough was quite frank about its origin and I do not think that that makes it any the worse. Whether or not one believes in hunting, I have no doubt that people engaged in hunting have any desire not to go outside the ambit of their sport to add cruelty. Indeed, they may do many things worth while outside that ambit.
I take the view, and always have done, that Private Members' Bills should be cherished a little by this House. I hope that I have always taken the view—but I am not sure whether I have always acted up to it—that, unless a Bill is obviously and grossly undesirable from my point of view, its passage should be

facilitated. If one feels uneasy about it, the time for expressing that uneasiness is much more appropriate on Third Reading, when the Bill has been examined in Committee and has had a chance of having its provisions considered. I have some humanitarian Bills on the Order Paper, but I fear that the entrance into the Chamber of the hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Doughty) means that we may not make further progress with them.

Mr. Charles Doughty: This Bill is unlikely to get my support.

Mr. Hale: I am glad to hear that, because disapproval by the hon. and learned Member is at least satisfying.
However, this spirit of reciprocity has to be expressed on both sides of the House. I object to this method of sending an hon. Member into the Chamber when he has not taken any part in consideration of a Bill—it usually happens just before four o'clock—and he calls "Object". Usually, he puts his hand in front of his mouth as if he were about to belch, apparently so that no one will know that he is going to call "Object". It seems to be a slight abuse of parliamentary procedure.
I hope that many people will see some of the pictures which have been produced about the effect on animals of the use of hydrogen bombs, for they are very moving and disturbing. It now appears, however, that if Mr. Khrushchev were to drop a bomb on Exmoor, even in the hours of daylight, he would be liable, under the Bill, to a fine, and even possibly something more severe.

2.48 p.m.

Mr. John Morrison: I do not wish to detain the House for more than a few moments. As my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Kimball) has explained, I have a connection with the society which originally sponsored this suggestion. I feel that I have no need to declare my interest as I am sure that my hon. Friends agree that it is a common interest and that on particular society wishes to claim the credit for a working party over which my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough so ably presided. My hon. Friend there found out much important detail which was put forward by my hon. Friend the


Member for Ludlow (Mr. More), in moving the Second Reading. I congratulate them both sincerely on what they have done and on their knowledge—and on the knowledge which they have acquired since they took up this proposal.
The Bill arose because there was a general feeling, particularly following the Deer (Scotland) Bill, that something more should be done to protect the deer in England and Wales. The feeling was shared by nature lovers and sportsmen—and many nature lovers are sportsmen and many sportsmen are nature lovers, which is as it should be. That is the reason for the Bill.
The Second Reading was moved very clearly by my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow. I was very glad that in doing so he mentioned the name of a very old friend of the House, the late Lord Winterton, who had the cause of deer protection in mind for many years and who set the scene for action on these lines. Incidentally, had another late hon. Member whom the House mourns, Mr. Jack Jones, been alive today, I believe that although he might have differed from Lord Winterton in many things across the Floor of the House, he would have agreed with him on the subject of animals because they shared the difficulty of riding a camel in the same squadron in the First World War.
The important Clause is that which concerns weapons. My hon. Friend made one point about the use of shotguns rather than rifles, but I am sure that we must consider the question of safety. If one is shooting into a hill, many things are safe, but there is much flat land on which deer appear, and one cannot have a weapon with a trajectory which goes for 2 miles without possibly running risks. Many of the high-speed, small-bore rifles, such as the ·22 can lead to cruelty.
In offering good wishes to the Bill, I should like to comment on what my hon. Friend said, in moving the Bill, about the number of deer in England and Wales. He gave some detailed figures, and I am sure that the figures which he gave are right. But in the West country—and I am thinking of Dorset and Somerset in particular—the number of deer have increased in my lifetime, and certainly in the last five years, particularly roe deer. In this

respect those of us who are country lovers and who love the deer feel that there must be some means of checking their advance should they be doing damage.
The Bill as it stands is a compromise on the issue between the views of the ardent stalker and the need to secure fair play to agriculture and forestry. I commend it heartily to the House.

Mr. T. L. Iremonger: rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put; but Mr. SPEAKER withheld his assent and declined then to put that Question.

2.52 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Royle: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. More) on introducing the Bill. I have a rather unusual interest in it in that in my constituency we have a park which has a very fine herd of deer, and both my constituents and everyone else interested in the future of Britain's parks, naturally, take a great interest in the animals that live there.
As far as I know, in Richmond Park we do not suffer from poachers, but up to a few months ago we suffered from the depredations of car drivers who, when the park was opened at night to motor vehicles during an experiment introduced by the Minister of Works, accidentally killed a number of deer. In 1961, they killed 11 deer after dark and they killed four in 1962. This will not happen in the future, as my right hon. Friend the Minister of Works has arranged that it will be closed every day at dusk.
I am a little concerned about Clause 16, and I should be grateful if my hon. Friend would explain certain aspects of it to me. I welcome Clause 3, which lays down certain weapons for the killing of deer or species, but Clause 16 is worded as follows:
This Act shall apply to land an interest in which belongs to Her Majesty in right of the Crown and land an interest in which belongs to a government department or is held in trust for Her Majesty for the purposes of a government department; but in its application to any land an interest in which belongs or is held as aforesaid this Act shall have effect subject to such modifications as may be prescribed by regulations made by the Secretary of State under this Act.
I want an assurance from my hon. Friend that my right hon. Friend


the Minister of Works will in no way be excluded from the provisions of the Bill. At the moment, I understand that it is necessary for steps to be taken every year to keep an eye on the size of the herd in the park. Indeed, every year the Ministry takes steps to reduce humanely the size of the herd on a carefully balanced basis. I feel most strongly that my right hon. Friend should in no way be allowed to stray from the aim of my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow. I hope that in Committee upstairs Clause 16 will be considered very carefully.
I do not wish to speak for very long. I merely wanted to express my interest and that of my constituents in the Bill. Many of them have written to me giving it wholehearted support. I should also like to take this opportunity of congratulating the rangers in Richmond Park and the Ministry of Works on the way in which this fine herd is kept. It is greatly appreciated by the many citizens of London who visit the park. I wish the Bill well in its various stages through the House.

2.57 p.m.

Mr. A. R. Wise: I will genuinely be brief, but I was driven to my feet by the attitude adopted by the hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Greenwood), who expressed the virtuous old puritan attitude which was against sport of all kind. He said that he recognised the necessity from time to time of hunting deer with a pack of hounds, but also said that he would confine it to professional huntsmen, without any possibility of anybody following the pack for the purposes of sport. That is precisely the old puritan attitude towards bear-baiting; they wanted to stop it, not because of cruelty to the bear but because it amused the people. I thought that we had genuinely grown out of that attitude.
With other hon. Members, I welcome the Bill. I think, that it requires a certain amount of examination in Committee, but not all that much. I am a little bothered about the endeavour to prevent night shooting. I agree that it is dangerous and might even be cruel to shoot at night, but I am always reluctant to introduce a Clause which it is difficult or perhaps impossible to enforce, and I am not at all sure whether we shall ever be able to stop sportsmen shooting deer at night. It is very difficult to do so.

The area has to be patrolled steadily, and there are only a few village constables—and if one hears a shot in the night, who is to say that that is the shot which hit the deer?
It may be that the mere existence of a sanction will do the trick. I sincerely hope that it will. There may be some justification at times for shooting at night. Mention has been made in the debate that, if it is desired to destroy deer which are genuinely damaging crops, one wants to make absolutely certain that they are damaging crops before one destroys them. If they happen to do it at night, the shooting must be done at night.
A deer is by no means an unintelligent animal. I have stalked deer in Germany. I have shot stags in Germany. I can remember very well one incident which surprised me very much. The forester with whom I was working and I had watched one very noble stag for three solid weeks come clown to water in one particular place. We were waiting peacefully until the season opened so as to be nice and legal about it. The very day the season opened the stag did not turn up.

Mr. F. A. Burden: He must have known the date.

Mr. Wise: He must have.
There are very few other major difficulties. There is one point on the use of the bow. There is no doubt whatever that the longbow is a powerful enough, and indeed an accurate enough, weapon, provided that somebody knows how to shoot it off. I am not at all sure that the standard of skill in archery, particularly when shooting at what may be a moving target, is anything like good enough to allow, or even to consider, the bow being brought into action for the destruction of deer.
I do not know whether it would be feasible to license the use of the bow, or whether a system could be devised to test whether the user is likely to be able to hit the target. I imagine that it would be very difficult. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. More) will not in future years consider too seriously the use of this instrument.
The crossbow is hopelessly out. One absolute bar against it is that it is impossible to reload it in less than three minutes. Therefore, if the first shot does


not produce the desired effect, but merely wounds the unfortunate animal, there is no chance of a fairly rapid second shot, which would be the merciful end.
I agree, also, that we must confine shooting to the smooth-bore gun. The rifle is too dangerous. I hope that the use of very heavy shot or, indeed, the single lethal ball, whether or not it damages the gun, will be a sufficient safeguard against any form of cruelty. Whether the ball damages the gun or not seems to be irrelevant. After all, if a man likes to damage his own gun, it is up to him. It can be used reasonably well. It is right to insist on its use in the Bill.
For all these reasons, I support the Bill, more particularly because it cuts directly across the high puritan protectionism of the hon. Member for Rossendale.

3.3 p.m.

Mr. Nicholas Ridley: I welcome the Bill. I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. More) on his good fortune in winning a place in the Ballot and on his choice of subject. I also apologise to him for not having been able to hear the speech, which, I hear, was excellent, with which he introduced the Bill.
I have some small comments to make about it. I think that it puts the last nail in the coffin of Robin Hood. As far as I can make out, he commits an offence under Clause 3 (1, c, vi), the bows and arrows provision, and probably under Clause 2, which would have prevented him from hunting in the dark. It is also sad, in a way, that my hon. Friend should make the whole of the battle of Chevy Chase illegal. It was probably illegal before the Bill was drafted, but it is now beyond all doubt that many provisions contained in the Bill were breached on that occasion.
It is generally welcome that we should take action to preserve the fauna of England. It is one of the few respects in which Scotland has got ahead of England. Scotland already has legislation preserving deer. I am only sad that our legislation should be behind that of Scotland. I therefore wish the Bill a very speedy passage through the House.
There is something rather sad about the way in which deer are often shot. I have no objection whatsoever to animals and birds being shot when they are coming to take food, or to drink water, or to go to roost. However, there is something rather unpleasant about the way deer are often ensnared and shot at when they are making love. That is true of the stalking of red and roe deer during the rut, for there is something rather unpleasant that that should be the attraction used to shot them.
It seems somewhat cumbersome that the Bill should lay down several different sorts of shots for use on different sorts of deer. For instance, the "SSG" and the "LG" are difficult to distinguish, especially once the deer has been shot. It will be a question of having to look in the corpse for the shot. The Bill seems unnecessarily fussy in this respect and I would have preferred it to have concentrated on one shot for the various types of deer.
I welcome the provision which states that only soft-nosed or hollow-nosed bullets may be used. This is a sound provision, but I am not at all happy about the roebuck himself and that he is not given the protection of a close season. I realise that there are arguments both ways on this topic, but it seems that the buck, which is one of the most charming and delightful animals, should be protected along with the doe. I hope that it will be possible to include him, perhaps at a later stage, at least in a close season; and I have heard it suggested that 1st November to 1st April would be a suitable close season for him.
I am not altogether happy about there being an absolute ban on night shooting. The arguments for this ban are not as strong as they might be and it must be remembered that a farmer or forestry owner suffering damage may find the deer not available to be destroyed during daylight hours. Perhaps the deer are resting outside the farmer's grounds by day and cause the damage by night. It would, therefore, be wrong not to allow a certain amount of night shooting. Some of it is done now and, as far as I know, there is no real likelihood of a deer being merely wounded or hurt.
I am also concerned about Clause 14 (3), which appears to let many people


escape the provisions of the Bill. It says, in effect, that one can disregard the whole Bill and do almost anything one likes provided that one can prove that deer are damaging one's crops. I may be wrong in reading this into the Bill, but there seems no point our passing a Measure of this sort, containing such excellent provisions, if it can be got round entirely through a loophole in one Clause. Perhaps this can be remedied in Committee.
Despite these criticisms, I welcome this attempt to extend protection to another important section of our animal life. Although my constituency is too barren of cover to be a great haunt of deer, I can say that, in general, the Measure will be welcomed by many people living in my constituency because of the protection it will give to deer throughout the country. The Gloucestershire Trust for Conservation has given the Bill its warmest support. I hope that the Bill will have a happy and speedy passage.

3.10 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. C. M. Woodhouse): Although it seems that other hon. Members wish to speak, it might be helpful to the House if at this stage I commented on the Bill on behalf of the Government. I should like to begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. More) on his success in the Ballot, on his very able and eloquent presentation of his Bill and also on the interesting excursions into the history and the natural history of the subject which he gave to the House, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Kimball) also added a number of interesting points.
If I may make one small contribution to the historical discussion on the Bill, I notice that in the Scott Henderson Report, to which reference has been made, it is recorded that only three native species of deer are found in Great Britain. Today, when we come to the Bill we find four mentioned, the fourth being the Sika deer which has recently established itself as indigenous. I had the luck to see one a week ago only 20 miles from London. As constituency interest seems to be in order in the debate, I would add that like my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Surrey (Mr. A. Royle), I also have a

deer park in my constituency. It is even more remarkable in my case since my constituency happens to be an industrial city.
It has been generally recognised on both sides of the House, tepidly by some but more warmly by others, that there are very strong humanitarian motives for the Bill and as the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. G. Thomas) has endorsed this opinion I think that I can safely endorse it also without departing from the customary neutrality of the Government on Private Member's Bills. But the Bill raises some complex difficulties, as hon. Members have recognised, and it is only fair before the House decides whether to give the Bill a Second Reading that some of the difficulties should be pointed out. The present position is, rather surprisingly, that deer enjoy comparatively little protection under the existing law. They certainly have found today a very worthy and well-informed champion in my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow, as everyone has recognised.
The prevention of cruelty to animals, including wild as well as domestic animals, is a matter on which all hon. Members rightly feel strongly. Therefore, it certainly would not be the Government's intention to raise any kind of objection in principle to a Measure of this kind, for which a genuine need can be shown, subject to our being persuaded that the provisions in the Bill are both reasonable and enforceable.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow referred to a remark made on this subject in another place a few years ago by a noble Lord—the then Under-Secretary of State—about the importance of such provisions being enforceable. He said that this was accepted as a challenge. I shall come to the question of enforceability in relation to the Bill in a moment, but I should like to touch first on the question whether it is reasonable that provisions of this kind should be written into the law.
I think that most hon. Members will have felt, from the account given by my hon. Friend and other speakers of the sufferings sometimes inflicted on deer, sometimes out of callousness and sometimes from mere carelessness, a general feeling of concern and sympathy on that head. But it does reveal a problem of


some magnitude, and it may well be thought by the House that it is one on a scale which can only be dealt with by legislative action. So we can all be grateful to my hon. Friend for lucidly drawing attention to this problem and for the clarity with which he has expounded his proposals for dealing with it.
The subject was studied in detail by the Scott Henderson Committee in 1951, and I think that many hon. Members who have contributed to the debate in a somewhat critical sense would do very well to read that Committee's Report, because it made a comprehensive study of all the questions relating to deer and the conclusions it reached were, I think in some respects, not only interesting but surprising.
The Committee concluded by making no recommendations for the introduction of legislation on a close season or a nightly close time for deer, or for statutory control over weapons, in the case of England and Wales. That contrasted with the recommendation that it arrived at for Scotland, where circumstances are different, as was recognised by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough. I think that it is important, although we have Scottish legislation as a precedent in this matter, that we should not be slavishly guided by it, since the circumstances are clearly not the same.
The Scott Henderson recommendations in the Scottish context were clearly bound up with proposals for the prevention of poaching of deer in Scotland, which was a serious problem at the time. It was not then a serious problem in England and Wales. There have on occasions been reports of outbreaks of deer poaching in England—for instance, a year or two ago in the Quantocks and three or four years ago in the Lake District. But the Government have no definite reason for thinking that there exists in England today, or that there is danger of existing, a problem in England of a magnitude similar to that which prevailed for some time in Scotland.
Some evidence was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow and other hon. Members which might indicate that there is a growing problem in England. Of course, the indiscriminate shooting which constitutes the main

evidence for the problem is not necessarily attributable only to poachers. Nevertheless, I think that everyone will agree that the observation of a close season in England is desirable on humane grounds. I will mention only one.
Reference was made in the Scott Henderson Report to the suffering caused when, in the absence of a close season, hinds are killed and calves left to starve. All hon. Members will regard that as a deplorable situation and will agree that provision for a close season is reasonable.
I understand that there is already a voluntary observation of a close season covering the main herds of deer in England and Wales, and it is certainly true in the forests under the control of the Forestry Commission. In parenthesis, perhaps I might be able to express general appreciation of the Forestry Commission's humane control methods and management schemes which, I am told, have shown very satisfactory results.
I must leave it to the House to decide, uninfluenced by any pressure from the Government, and in the light of the facts quoted by the sponsors of the Bill, whether a case exists for the imposition of a statutory close season on top of the existing voluntary practice.
I should now like to turn to the second question I raised in opening, the question of enforcement or enforceability. To do that I shall have to examine one or two of the Clauses of the Bill in a little detail. I will try to leave aside what may be regarded as purely Committee points to be dealt with at a later stage, but there are some points in some of the Clauses which, despite the encomium of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale), do leave the Bill open to question and which, I think, should be at any rate put before the House before it decides whether to give the Bill a Second Reading.
The first one I want to touch on is in Clause 1 (2) which empowers the Minister by order to fix close seasons for species of deer not already named in the Schedule. There are four species named in the Schedule, and as my hon. Friend very fairly pointed out, the roe buck is not among them. I think it may be necessary to amend this provision if it is intended—as may not be the intention of the sponsors, but some Members


of the House have indicated that it should be done, my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley), for instance—to enable Ministers to make an order in respect of roe buck which are omitted from the Schedule, or, alternatively, if it is desired to enable a close season to be named for the females of any species not named in the Schedule but not for the males of that species, which is certainly a possibility which one would want to hold open.
Clause 1 (6) defines the Ministers for the purpose of Clause 1 as the Secretary of State—a reference to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary—the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister for Science acting jointly. We have looked at this provision and we think it is perhaps unnecessarily elaborate, and I am authorised by my right hon. Friends to say that they would prefer that this duty should be laid on the Secretary of State alone, though he would, of course, consult his colleagues in any respect which might be necessary before making any order under Clause 1, and I hope that my hon. Friend would be willing to consider amending the Bill in that respect.
Clause 2 is, as has been pointed out, very important, perhaps the most important Clause in the Bill. This is the Clause which prohibits the taking or killing of deer at night, and my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow has fully explained his reasons for seeking this prohibition. I think there can be very little room for doubt that in general the shooting of deer at night is undesirable and that it should, as far as is practicable, be avoided, but there is a difficulty which has been referred to by hon. Members, that a good deal of the damage done by deer to farm crops does take place during the hours of darkness. There may be, therefore, a case for exempting the occupiers of agricultural land from the nightly close time and permitting them to shoot deer found on their land during the prohibited hours. There is such an exemption already in Section 33 of the Deer (Scotland) Act.
This leads me to turn briefly to Clause 14 (2) which does not, as the Bill is drafted, connect with Clause 2, but which I think should be made to connect with Clause 2, if I may suggest

that amendment for a later stage. Clause 14 (2) exempts from the nightly close time
anything done in pursuance of a requirement by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food under section 98 of the Agriculture Act, 1947.
This, I think, is one point in the Bill where it is relevant to retain the Minister of Agriculture, although I have suggested that he could be conveniently deleted elsewhere, and would be willing, indeed, to be deleted elsewhere; but this Clause relates to pest control, which is a function of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture.
However, as notices under that Section of the Agriculture Act are served only when an occupier has not himself taken the necessary steps to control pests, I think the House might reasonably regard it as logical to extend the same exemption to occupiers who are prepared to take action themselves in limiting pests. On the other hand, there is, we must recognise, the contrary argument that as wounded deer cannot be easily followed up at night considerable suffering might be caused by night shooting. This is an argument in which there is much force. I observed, if I understood the speeches rightly, that my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mr. Wise) and my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester took opposite views on this point. I mention these two sides of the argument only because it is a difficult question, and I think it is right that the House should be made fully aware of them and of the fact that this is a point which will need very careful consideration in Committee if the Bill is given a Second Reading.
Next, I turn to Clause 3, which is the other outstandingly important and crucial Clause in the Bill, and also, I am sorry to say, one of the most difficult. I think the House would agree that it is essential that any enactment should be enforceable, and I am bound to say that on the advice we have so far received it seems to me doubtful whether the rather complex provisions about weapons are enforceable. I will not go into the provisions in detail, and I will not pursue the argument about archers, but those weapons are not the only ones that cause difficulty and lead me to wonder whether the Clause as it stands could easily be enforced.
The same problem did not arise in the case of the legislation for Scotland in 1959 because the Deer (Scotland) Act simply made it an offence to kill deer except by shooting other than with an automatic repeating weapon, and there was no need there to spell out so much detail about the particular weapon. But Clause 3 of the Bill, on the other hand, sets out—my hon. Friends the Members for Ludlow and Gainsborough gave very persuasive reasons why it was necessary to set out—a great many details of bore, calibre and muzzle energy of shotguns or rifles and, of course, the minimum size of shot and the type of bullet that might be used.
I can quite see that ideally such detailed provisions are required, because there can be no doubt, after what my hon. Friend has said, supported by other hon. Members, that a considerable degree of suffering is at present caused to deer by the use of unsuitable and inadequate weapons and ammunition. So it would certainly seem reasonable that if the Bill is to achieve its intended objective of reducing this suffering—I am sure the House is unanimous in wishing that it should—it must impose some statutory control over the use of guns. Nevertheless, these rather complicated provisions of Clause 3 could very well be difficult to enforce and some simplification of them may be considered desirable on this account. I was glad to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough suggest in one context that there was already good reason to believe that some simplification would be possible and easy, but I think even more may be necessary.
The doubts I have expressed on this point would, I think, be strengthened in the minds of hon. Members who read the relevant paragraphs of the Scott Henderson Report on this subject. That Committee, after the most comprehensive consideration of the shooting of wild animals, both as a method of control and as a sport, came to the conclusion, which they expressed in these words, that
it would be quite impossible … to regulate shooting by laying down minimum ranges and other details of that sort.
For that reason, the Committee could make no recommendation for legislation.
My hon. Friend is seeking to do better than the Scott Henderson Report was

able to do, but I suggest that the House must consider carefully whether he has succeeded. It will, of course, be appreciated that the range as well as the size of the bore and shot is an important factor in considering the suffering which could be caused to deer which might be maimed but not killed.
Reference has been made to the effect of a 12-bore shotgun, for example. The Scott Henderson Committee concluded that except at very close range, a 12-bore shotgun was incapable of killing deer with certainty. The Committee put that range at not more than 15 to 20 yards in order that such a shotgun might be effective against deer. The Committee expressed the view that it is because of the difficulty of getting deer within this range that so much cruelty is involved in deer shooting and that the shooting of deer with shotguns is inevitably accompanied by a considerable degree of suffering.
The Committee also felt impelled by its own argument to accept that as a rifle has a range of us to 3,000 yards, and no matter what might be possible in Scotland, in England the shooting of deer with rifles would be too dangerous to be tolerated. The Committee accordingly came to the conclusion that there was in practice, however regrettable it might be, no alternative but to accept the continued use of shotguns.
In alluding to this difficulty, I should like to add that although I have referred to the importance of the question of the range at which shooting takes place, I am certainly not advocating that any maximum range should be written into Clause 3 of the Bill which would make it even more complicated than it is now and would, I think, certainly be unenforceable.
There are two other important points in Clause 3 to which I should refer briefly. The first is that it prohibits the use of snares as well as other methods of taking deer. There is no doubt that it is generally accepted that the snaring of deer is a cruel and a bad method of killing. The Scott Henderson Committee recommended that, because of the cruelty inevitably involved in snaring, all snaring of deer should be prohibited. That recommendation, however, has not yet been implemented in legislation for England and Wales.
I should like to say emphatically that the Government deprecate that practice


most strongly and that, although there is no evidence that it is being indulged in to any significant extent, the House may well feel inclined to regard the proposed statutory prohibition of snaring as an especially valuable part of the Bill.
The last point on Clause 3 which it is important to mention is subsection (3, a), which makes it an offence to discharge any firearm or project any missile from any mechanically propelled vehicle at any deer. I quite appreciate the reason for the inclusion of this provision. It is to prevent poachers taking advantage of the fact that wild animals are comparatively indifferent to motor vehicles and thus to take advantage of them to get within shooting distance in a vehicle. My hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow recognised the difficulties in this and my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Surrey drew attention to practices under the Ministry of Works in Richmond Park. These and other difficulties lead me to wonder whether it is altogether reasonable to compel a person who is assumed to be lawfully shooting deer, perhaps for conservation purposes, to descend from his vehicle before firing. I am told that in some cases of physical disability, it may be impossible for a bona fide user of a vehicle and weapon to do so.

Mr. Wise: This provision against using motor cars for the pursuit of game is almost universal in the game laws of every British dependency throughout the world.

Mr. Woodhouse: I am grateful to my hon. Friend and I emphasise that I am not taking a firm line on this matter, but merely suggesting one of the points we should concern the Committee if the Bill receives a Second Reading.
I now turn to Clause 4 which, as is the way with Clause 4s, is slightly difficult. It provides for more severe penalties if two or more persons acting together engage in the night shooting of deer or use prohibited weapons. This follows Section 24 of the Deer (Scotland) Act. That Act, however, was aimed at a different kind of problem. It was designed to deal with the problem of gang poaching which in Scotland was then rife. The provision in the Scottish Act relates

not only to nightly close times and the use of prohibited weapons, but also makes the killing of deer by poachers a statutory offence.
Without taking sides in the matter, I remind the House that there was considerable opposition to this provision when the Scottish Measure was going through Parliament. It was eventually accepted, though with considerable reluctance, on the basis that it would be applied solely in cases of commercial poaching involving a gang element. In the absence of a similar situation in England and Wales, the House might think it doubtful whether it would be possible to justify the retention of Clause 4 as it stands and the related provisions, subsection 12) and subsection (4) of Clause 7 and the whole of Clause 9.
In any case, even if the provision in Clause 4 were to be retained, it would be for consideration whether only two persons—Clause 4 says two or more—acting in concert should be regarded as constituting a gang. It seems a rather small gang. For legal reasons, with which I will not weary the House in detail, it would also be necessary to consider carefully the proposed penalties in Clause 4, because the penalty of six months' imprisonment for a second or subsequent offence would create difficulties if the accused elected to go for trial.
Although Clause 5 is very complicated, I can be brief about it. Again it reproduces the Scottish Act, but in a markedly different context. I am not sure that Clause 5 in its present form would be an enforceable provision in English law, or so I am advised by the lawyers. Its provisions are complicated and this is not the time to go into them in detail, but they would have to receive careful consideration in Committee.
I can jump over several Clauses and come to Clause 12 which is important and which again is copied from the Scottish Act. This relates to offences by bodies corporate. In the Scottish Act there is no doubt that such a provision was required, but it was required in connection with Part I of that Act which is headed
Conservation and Control of Red Deer".
and that part of the Scottish Act is not reproduced in this Bill. It seems unlikely that offences against the more limited


provisions of this Bill would be committed by a body corporate, and I therefore suggest that Clause 12 is unnecessary and perhaps irrelevant. I hope that my hon. Friend might agree to its deletion at a later stage.
Clause 14 (3), to which my hon. Friend also referred as important, is another one which would need careful consideration in Committee. This is the Clause to which my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury objected, though I do not think his reasons for objecting to it would be quite the same as the Government's, because, apart from the point that he made, it can also be suggested that it is an advantage to follow the precedent of the Scottish Act and permit an occupier of agricultural land to authorise an agent to kill on his behalf during the close season any marauding deer which are causing damage to his crops. The occupier may be disabled or inexpert in the use of firearms, or simply not want to do it himself, and in such circumstances there may be some advantage in allowing him to make use of the services of an expert to ensure that offending animals which have to be dispatched are dispatched humanely. For the same reason, if this exception were extended to apply also to the nightly close time, it might be considered desirable that the occupier should in the same way be enabled to authorise another person to do any essential shooting of deer on his behalf.
Before I leave Clause 14 (3), another point of some importance is that under the Scottish Act, which at this point is not followed by the Bill, a specific right is conferred on an occupier to kill deer found on enclosed land during the close season. The Bill, instead of having that provision, makes it an offence to kill deer during the close season, and thus leaves the onus on the occupier who shoots deer at such a time to prove that his action was necessary for the purpose of preventing serious damage to his crops, and also that the shooting was the only practicable way of preventing such damage.
I concede that in drafting this Clause my hon. Friend has preferred to turn not to the Scottish Act but to the precedent of Section 4 (2, a) of the Protection of Birds Act, 1954, which this Clause

closely follows, and I have no doubt that he has done so to give a greater degree of protection to deer. This emphasises again the humanitarian purposes behind the Bill, but I do not think it necessarily follows that a statutory provision which has been designed for the protection of birds is the most appropriate way of providing for the protection of deer in such a context as this. If an occupier, however reluctantly, shoots deer during the prohibited times, it may well be difficult for him to prove that it was essential for him to do so, but the Clause as drafted would leave that onus on him.
On Clause 15, my hon. Friend might like to consider whether the licence to be granted under this Clause might not be more appropriately granted to the occupier of the land rather than to the owner. I see that as drafted it would be possible for the owner to act as the intermediary so to speak in getting a licence and passing it on to the occupier, but this seems perhaps an unnecessarily inconvenient way of approaching the problem.
It would also be worth considering—again on humanitarian grounds—especially cases where deer are kept in parks and sometimes have to be moved against their will, giving permission, under licence, to the person in charge of the deer to use a stupefying drug or a muscle-relaxing agent, which would otherwise be forbidden to him, either to deal with an injured deer in his park or to move deer from one place to another.
Clause 16, which again derives from the corresponding Scottish Act, was briefly referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow, and more at length by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Surrey (Mr. A. Royle). I am inclined to think that this Clause has strayed from the Scottish Act by mistake. It is clear that since it relates to land, and does not refer to animals anywhere in its eight or nine lines, its function in the Scottish Act was related to that part of the Act which was concerned with the conservation and control of deer—in other words, Part I. As I have mentioned, Part I of that Act has no counterpart in the present Bill, because the Bill does not impose duties on owners or occupiers of land. In my view, therefore, the Clause is unnecessary. If my hon. Friend


will agree to delete it on those grounds at a later stage he will at the same time be able to take care of the competition, on other grounds, by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks.
I have drawn attention to these points because it is desirable for the House to know, in the case of such a complex although thoroughly well-intentioned Bill, exactly what it is passing judgment upon. In reaching a decision whether or not to give the Bill a Second Reading the House ought to be aware of some of the difficulties—many of them considerable ones—which might arise at a later stage if the Bill makes further progress.
But from the debate so far, as I have listened to it, it seems likely that the Bill will not be unduly controversial on general grounds, and both for humanitarian reasons and from the standpoint of the conservation and good management of deer the House may well feel that the Bill has a good deal to commend it.
I do not wish to try to influence the decision of the House in either direction, but I want to assure hon. Members that if the Bill is given a Second Reading the Government will co-operate in examining its provisions more closely, perhaps with the valuable help of the hon. Member for Oldham, West who has already spoken favourably on its drafting—and we shall help to ensure that if the Bill reaches the Statute Book it will do so in a form which will be both effective and possible to enforce.

Mr. T. H. H. Skeet: rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put, but Mr. SPEAKER withheld his assent and declined then to put that Question.

3.49 p.m.

Mr. F. A. Burden: I am sure that the House will be grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. More) for having brought the Bill forward, and also to the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Kimball), who, to my knowledge, has done a tremendous amount of work in preparing the Bill. The House will probably agree that, whatever my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary has said, he has made it clear that the Bill should receive a Second Reading—and I hope that it will be without a Division. He has also

made it clear that in this matter the Government are neutral. This is a position that the Government seldom adopt, and when they do, it encourages us tremendously.
I think that much of the best work of this House is done when there is very little division between either side of the House. It would have been extremely difficult for my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary to have opposed the Bill on behalf of the Government, as I believe that it would have been difficult for any hon. Member not to have given it his blessing.
What does the Bill do? It is, in fact, intended to stop cruelty. It does not attempt in any way to stop the necessary control of deer, but it states that certain safeguards must be carried out, and that in controlling deer we must ensure that there is as little cruelty as possible. It also ensures that there shall be close seasons. What humane person would deny that hind with calf have a right to some protection? Over the whole range of animal and bird life protection is given. Why should it have been denied to deer for so long?
The R.S.P.C.A. and other animal welfare societies have pressed for this for a considerable time. One thing which I find encouraging about the animal welfare lobby in the House—it is a comparatively strong one—is that it endeavours to be realistic. It derives much of its strength from the fact that it is realistic. It does not indulge in extremes, but tries to arrive at a sensible compromise in all matters affecting animal welfare.
My feelings about uncontrolled and irresponsible shooting of deer, frequently for profit, became most pronounced after a visit to Scotland in 1958, when I saw evidence of the terrible cruelty inflicted upon deer by the activities of poachers with shotguns. There, on a comparatively small estate, I was able to examine photographs of deer that had been terribly maimed and injured by poachers attracting them by lights at night and shooting them from vehicles with shotguns. I was able to talk to keepers who had been forced to go out over extremely difficult terrain to bring an end to animals which had been severely wounded as a result of the activities of poachers

Sir Thomas Moore: I have a letter here on that very subject from a stalker who is well known in Scotland. He states that almost without exception all the stags and deer that he had stalked and shot had already been injured by small arms weapons. This confirms exactly what my hon. Friend has been saying.

Mr Burden: I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point because it is something that the House should bear strongly in mind when deciding whether to give the Bill an unopposed Second Readying. I think that the stirring of conscience in Scotland because of these activities by poachers has been a help to us in introducing a Bill to control the shooting of deer.
Nevertheless, that should not in any way make us reluctant to accept the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow has done a service in introducing this Bill. I apologise for being absent. I am told that he made an excellent and persuasive speech. I am not surprised, because I know the tremendous amount of work he has put into the Measure.
I was concerned at one point when my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary referred to the difficulties which would arise if a ban were imposed on shooting deer at night. He said that this was frequently the time when deer did the most damage. In fact, poachers shoot deer at night because that is when the animals are most easily attracted. The poachers attract the deer by lights and then shoot them. We may arrive at a situation where deer may be shot from vehicles when the animals are doing no damage whatever and the excuse offered that they were shot because they were doing damage. I suggest, therefore, that this matter must be looked at very carefully before we accept the blandishments of my hon. Friend.
There are, of course, always difficulties about the introduction of a Bill. No Acts of Parliament would be passed if we accepted that difficulties were always insurmountable. I believe that the Bill will provide a yardstick by which we can judge that the least possible cruelty is inflicted while the necessary measures are carried out to control the deer. This is an admirable Measure which will satisfy the wishes of those who desire that proper control shall be exercised over the deer and, at the same time, every humane provision is abided

by. I am sure that all hon. Members will agree that the Bill should have a Second Reading.

3.58 p.m.

Mr. Marcus Lipton: This Bill is not so admirable as has been suggested by the hon. Member for Gillingham (Mr. Burden). It seeks to prohibit all forms of cruelty to the deer, with the exception of the least excusable of all, namely, hunting with hounds for sport. I should have welcomed some remarks from the hon. Member on that subject.
This is a difficult and complicated Bill which it took 35 minutes for the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. More) to explain to the House.

Mr. More: Mr. More rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.

Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.

Question put accordingly and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 38 (Committal of Bills).

PUBLIC ORDER ACT 1936 (AMENDMENT) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Hon. Members: Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday, 22nd March.

RACIAL DISCRIMINATION AND INCITEMENT BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Hon. Members: Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday, 22nd March.

WILLS BILL

Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [22nd February], That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Question again proposed.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 38 (Committal of Bills).

SERVICE DISABILITY PENSIONS BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Hon. Members: Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday, 29th March.

INDUSTRIAL DISEASES (BYSSINOSIS) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Hon. Members: Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday, 29th March.

NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT (1957) AMENDMENT BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Hon. Members: Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday, 29th March.

WORLD SECURITY AGENCY BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Hon. Members: Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday, 22nd March.

NAPIER AERO ENGINES LTD. (CLOSURE)

Motion made, and Question proposed. That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. McLaren.]

4.4 p.m.

Mr. Philip Holland: Last August, a joint statement was issued by the English Electric Company and Rolls-Royce Ltd. announcing the closure of the Acton factory of Napier Aero Engines Ltd., involving the redundancy of more than 2,000 employees. Since then those of us involved in the tragic death of this industrial giant in my constituency have tried to move heaven and earth in attempts to prevent an additional burden of work being thown on to the Ministry of Labour.
In August, we made representations to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to see whether he could persuade the companies to reverse their decision. In September, we had a meeting with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation to see whether other aircraft work could be transferred to the factory. In October, we met my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade to see whether we could secure any other engineering work, or whether, alternatively, we could secure his neutrality in the event of another engineering company wishing to develop the property.
In the same month, and again in November, an approach was made to my noble Friend the Minister for Science to see whether the premises could be used for Government development works or prototype works. The premises have now been purchased by a development company, which is to convert them into smaller industrial units. The implication of this, of course, is that there is likely to be a time lag between the closing down of the present industrial activity and the opening up of the new industrial activity.
The present position of the factory is that about half the employees have now left, and it is expected that the remainder will be leaving at the rate of about 150 to 200 a month between now and the end of August. According to my figures, 543 hourly employees have already left and 435 are still to go. In the month of March, the current month, 128 of those are to leave, and then the numbers each month will decline steadily until August. I have here the month-by-month estimate for the numbers leaving, and if my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary would like to see them after the debate, I should be glad to show them to him.
Of the 1,000 or so total employees—that is, staff and works—who have already left, 65 were registered at the end of February at the local employment exchanges as unemployed. Added to these were another 11 who were registered with the Professional and Executive Register. Of the 202 apprentices involved in the rundown—because Napier Aero Engines Limited had a first-class and vigorous apprenticeship scheme—only three are as yet not matched to a vacancy to enable them to continue their training from the point which they had reached with Napier


Aero Engines. According to my latest figures 176 apprentices have already been transferred to other companies and are continuing their apprenticeships; 18 have been offered vacancies; five interviews have been arranged—and according to my arithmetic that leaves three not yet matched to vacancies. There is still time for those three.
Thanks to the efforts of the local offices of the Ministry and the regional offices, thanks to the initiative and the hard work of those executives who stayed with the company to open employment and appointments offices in the works, and thanks very much to the constructive work and responsible cooperation of the shop stewards committee, all this has the appearance at this stage of the rundown of a success story—a very highly successful story.
What, then, is the purpose of raising the matter on the Adjournment at this time? First, there are already 76 people out of work and unable to find work within a reasonable length of time. They range throughout the scale. At one end of the scale, if I may so put it, there is the 60-year-old skilled craftsman who said to his friend the other day that he wished he were five years older. He would wish five years of his life away in order that he could retire honourably instead of being thrown prematurely on the scrap heap. At the other end of the scale we have a member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, a projects engineer, who, at the age of 44, has been unemployed since last October because his potential employers consider that his recent experience has been too highly specialised. One of the lessons which is emerging is the fact that the more highly qualified the man, the more specialised the man, the more difficult it is to find a vacancy for him. This is rather a sad reflection, on the state of our society.
I have here a number of cases, all of good highly qualified engineers with good experience, who are today unsuccessfully seeking work in my constituency and the surrounding area—an area recognised as one of high economic activity. Indeed, in spite of the underlying weakness in the economy at the moment, Acton remains one of the most highly industrialised and certainly one of the most highly prosperous areas of

the country. I intend to do everything that I can to see that it stays that way. Yet even in Acton the number of unfilled vacancies registered at the local office has fallen from 322 in Octobet to 195 in February, and the number of unemployed has risen quite appreciably in percentage, although, happily for Acton, this does not mean so heavy an increase in numbers as it might in other parts of the country.
This brings me to the real nub of this debate. The rundown at Napiers has now reached a point at which the task of finding work for those becoming redundant during the next few months will increase sharply in degree of difficulty. Basically, the reason for this is that a much higher percentage of the people leaving over the next five months will be the long service and the older employees. Indeed, I am told that three-quarters of the shop floor employees still at Napiers are in the age group 50–65.
Without suggesting that the unemployment situation in Acton and West London generally is in any way comparable with the situation in the north of England or Scotland, let me say that the level of unemployment here is undoubtedly much higher than we have known it for quite a long time. In addition, we have a very noticeable amount of short-time working, which is certainly not helpful to those seeking employment. Unhappily, there are few signs as yet of an appreciable recovery in the local engineering industries. Indeed, only this week we have news of yet another engineering firm in Acton that is contemplating redundancies in the near future.
I know from my own visits to many factories in the area that in the long term these things will improve, but how long does it take for the demoralising effect of enforced idleness to take the heart out of a skilled man accustomed to hard work? How many setbacks can be endured by a man who is nearing but has not yet reached retirement age? How much wastage of skill and experience can this country afford at a time when we are fighting to improve our position in a highly competitive world?
During the months that I have been in close touch with this situation I have learned that the Ministry officials have been anxious to co-operate to the full


with the company. I know, too, that the company has been working hard and effectively to supplement the work of the employment exchange. In paying tribute, as I do, to both these organisations I should also like to say how very much I applaud the wholly responsible attitude and the constructive endeavours of the works convenor and the individual members of the shop stewards committee with whom is has been my privilege to work in very close harmony for these months. Nevertheless, in spite of the effective combined operation during the first half of the rundown at Napiers, much more will have to be done to achieve anything like this success during the second half upon which we have now embarked.
Normally, the function of my hon. Friend's Department is to match applicants with vacancies notified to the exchanges. This, I fear, will be inadequate to cope with the current phase of Napier's rundown. I therefore urge my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to consider ways and means of developing a more positive and more active sales drive to sell to industry the accumulated skill and experience of these men. Whilst saying this, may I also ask him not to overlook the shortcomings of his Department's Professional and Executive Register, a register that has now had on its books for more than a couple of months a number of highly qualified and experienced senior executives, both technical and sales executives, willing to go anywhere, without, it appears, any prospect of placing them?
It is not my wish to be critical of the past or present efforts of the officers of the Ministry of Labour at either national or local level. I have a great respect for their work and know that they do all they can within the limitations of their terms of reference. My purpose in this debate has been to bring to the attention of my hon. Friend the dangers inherent in what is certainly a worsening situation in Acton and to urge him to seek ways and means of stepping up still further the activities of his Department. I sincerely hope that he will do just that.

4.14 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Skeffington: I am very glad indeed to have the opportunity of adding a few

words to the very sincere plea that the hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Holland) has made in connection with the unfortunate situation due to the closure of Napiers. The factories are in his constituency, but many of those who work or who have worked for Napiers live in my constituency and in that of my hon. Friend the Member for Feltharn (Mr. Hunter). They number some of the most highly skilled and respected of our citizens.
One of the real sadnesses in contemplating this case is that so many of those who find themselves without work are not only highly skilled, but have given a lifetime of service to the firm. In the one group we met there was not a man who had been with the company for less than 10 years—and he was regarded as rather the baby of the group. Others had put in 30 or 40 years. So, while we must mourn the passing of this firm, which had such a great reputation throughout the world in engineering, we must be even more concerned to see that everything possible is done for the men with this high degree of craftsmanship, particularly those who are in later life and to whom the additional hardship of having to do less skilled work, perhaps further from home, will constitute an additional hardship.
I must restrict my remarks, because I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Feitham wishes to lodge his plea to the Ministry. In one respect, the result of what has happened at Napiers is the result of Government policy. I am not now arguing whether this was right or wrong, but the consolidation of the aircraft industry was originally considered to be the right and proper course to follow. I do not think that it was intended to work out in this way with respect to Napiers, and to have had this effect. But there can be no doubt that what is happening to Napiers has been the result of an attempt to concentrate the industry and it seems that, on that ground, we can properly appeal to the Ministry to make special efforts to give whatever assistance is possible to those who are the unfortunate victims of that policy.
Had this happened a few years ago there would have been less concern, because industrial Middlesex was then one of the lucky areas. But, according to


figures given to me in reply to a Question on 27th February—and because of the time element I will not detail them—the number of men and women unemployed in the various areas of the county has at least doubled, and sometimes trebled, during the last year or so.
Because Napiers and those who work for it are the victims at least to some extent of the Government's policy, and since we now face a totally different employment situation in Middlesex, we are entitled to ask and receive every possible help from the Ministry of Labour and other Government Departments.

4.12 p.m.

Mr. A. E. Hunter: I wish to associate myself with the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Skeffington) and thank the hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Holland) for raising this matter.
The Napier premises are in the Borough of Acton, but a number of my constituents have worked for the company for many years. I know, from the heartbreaking letters I have received from them, how sad the story is. We are speaking of one of the oldest firms in aircraft engineering—a firm with a famous name—and apart from the human tragedy of the men who are losing their jobs, it is a national tragedy that Napiers is to go.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington, the hon. Member for Acton and myself met the shop stewards and we know their feelings. At one time there were about 2,000 employees at Napiers. I understand that about 1,000 are left and that they will go by August. I appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to do all he can to help to find suitable jobs for them. There is a great human and social side to this story and I appeal to the hon. Gentleman to urge the Ministry to do all it can to find suitable and satisfactory jobs for the employees of Napiers who become redundant.

4.20 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. William Whitelaw): My hon. Friend the Member for Acton (Mr. Holland) was good enough to let me have some details of the points that he wished to raise this afternoon and I should like to thank him for his courtesy. I am sure that both he and the

hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Skeffington) and the hon. Member for Feltham (Mr. Hunter) will feel that it has been worth their while to have this debate. I should like to congratulate my hon. Friend on what I think would rightly be regarded as a very reasonably and carefully presented case.
My hon. Friend raised several important points and I will do my best to reply to them. I know, too, that my hon. Friend and the other two hon. Members have been working very hard for some time on this problem, which closely affects their constituencies. I am glad, in particular, that my hon. Friend has decided to use the Adjournment to press his case still further because he, having the factory in his constituency, is the one most closely affected. The closure of a factory of this size in any area, I agree at once, is a serious development not only for the community in which it takes place, but also for the employees which it affects.
My hon. Friend has chosen to concentrate in his speech on this latter question of the effect on employees. I am sure that this is right, since nobody who has spent any time at the Ministry of Labour can have failed to be made aware of the hardships and problems of adjustment to which redundancies of this size give rise. I agree both with the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington about the problems of adjustment and with the hon. Member for Feltham about the human hardships which arise in such cases.
I hope to show to the House that in this case a good deal has been done towards alleviating this hardship. I hope, also, to be able to give them an assurance about what will be done in future. Such problems, of course, can only be tackled through the combined efforts of all those concerned. The success which has been achieved in alleviating hardship so far proves that such co-operation has been very evident in this case.
The firm itself has taken seriously its responsibilities to its employees and has done a good deal to help them to find alternative work. The firm has operated a redundancy scheme which includes basic severance payment of half a week's pay for each completed year of service, with an extra half a week's pay for each year of service beyond twenty-four years. The firm has also been particularly helpful in assisting the Ministry of Labour to find alternative employment for those


who were looking for it. I should like to pay tribute to the assistance which the firm has given us at all times since this redundancy was announced. It is an example which one would wish very much were followed in all such cases in all parts of the country.
The firm, from the very start, allowed us to register employees in advance of discharge and enabled us to set up an office in the factory for this purpose. Full particulars of all workers about to become redundant were furnished in advance to the employment exchange officers, and the firm agreed to channel through the Ministry of Labour all inquiries that it received for labour from other firms. This arrangement has done a great deal to assist local officers in affording ail possible help in dealing with this redundancy.
I was grateful for the tributes which my hon. Friend the Member for Acton generously paid to the work not only of our local officers in Acton, but also of our regional offices. I should like to pay tribute to the employers, to the trade unions concerned—as did my hon. Friend—and, indeed, to all the other interests in the area who have helped to find alternative employment for the work-people who have so far left the firm. The efforts which have been made have produced what is a reasonably satisfactory situation at this stage, and 1,308 of the original labour force have left either voluntarily or through discharge. This means that about half the firm's original labour force still remain in employment, and of the 1,308 who have left only 76 are registered unemployed. These figures speak for themselves, particularly as this rundown has been carried through, as hon. Members have mentioned, when unemployment in the Greater London area and in the country as a whole has been rising.
The position of apprentices is always a matter which must give rise to special concern when redundancies of this sort occur. I am sure that we are all particularly anxious that young people at this very early and important stage in their industrial lives should suffer as little disruption as possible. Once again, I can let the figures speak for themselves as a measure of the success which has met our efforts here.
According to my figures—which differ very slightly from those of my hon. Friend—of the 205 apprentices in the factory when the closure was announced suitable vacancies in comparable apprenticeships still need to be found for only four. Many of the apprentices at Napiers who were in lodgings in Acton have now found alternative apprenticeships nearer their homes.
Also, I am glad to be able to say that the youth employment situation generally in Acton has remained comparatively good. This month 16 boys and 7 girls were unemployed as against 7 boys and 7 girls in the same period last year. Furthermore, none of the 157 young people who left school at Christmas is still unemployed.
Now I want to look at the problems that remain, and I do so against the background of the employment position in the area. It is, of course, true that Acton is an extremely industrialised part of Greater London, which itself is an area in which demand for labour of all sorts, and particularly for skilled workers, is reasonably high. This has remained true generally although, of course, the level of unemployment has followed the upward trend in recent months.
It is fair to say that employment opportunities, one trusts, should materially improve as the months go on and—as is now happening—the weather improves; I hope that the opportunities for the people being discharged from Napiers will correspondingly improve in these months ahead, as I think they ought to.
My hon. Friend asked me particularly about the future, the positive side of this problem. He stressed that we are likely to be faced with an increasingly difficult problem in helping to find alternative employment for the remaining employees at the factory. He emphasised the problem of dealing with the growing proportion of older work people who have yet to leave the firm, and also those who are likely to be dealt with by our Professional and Executive Register. He mentioned some of the difficulties which had already been created in this.
I am afraid that older workers are inevitably a special feature of redundancies of this sort, and we share his concern that everything possible should


be done to help these people. I can assure the House that we in the Ministry of Labour are very much alive to this problem and that we shall continue to spare no effort to find alternative employment for these people. For those who have skills in demand in industry there should, of course, be less difficulty.
I have also noted what my hon. Friend said about those who have technical and professional qualifications. I accept that we are likely to have to deal with a further large number of people of this sort, and I also accept that this is likely to be a special problem, particularly since it is often the case that these people have developed through the years special skills and experience which are of value only to their present employer. I am bound to agree with what he said about that.
I hope that it will be some comfort to him if I tell him that in our experience of other cases of this sort these people rarely create a lasting serious problem of unemployment, and this is true even in the areas of traditionally high unemployment. It does often mean, however, that such people have to be willing to accept work which is not absolutely comparable with what they have been doing in the past, or that they must be prepared to travel further afield to find new employment. We for our part recognise the problem we are likely to face, and we are determined to do what we can to help.
Perhaps at this point I could take up my hon. Friend's remarks when he urged me to see that our Professional and

Executive Register is giving sufficient attention to this particular type of problem. I am sure that he appreciates the particular difficulties in this field. At the same time, I will look personally into this to see whether anything more can be done to help.
I hope that I have said enough to show that we in the Ministry of Labour fully appreciate the nature of the problems with which we shall be faced in the remaining stages of this rundown. On the whole, we do not expect that, with the economy expanding as we all trust it will, there will be any serious problem of general redundancies. I hope that, at the same time, I have made it clear that we fully recognise the nature and extent of the adjustments people at this factory will have to make.
I realise how very easy it is to talk about adjustments while not appreciating the personal difficulties to which these adjustments give rise. I should, once again, like to say that, whatever I may say about the need for adjustments, I very much realise the problems they inevitably create for the people concerned. If we are to solve all the individual difficulties, as we must, then the joint efforts of everyone concerned must not only be continued, but actually reinforced.
I want to assure my hon. Friend and the other hon. Gentlemen who have spoken that the Ministry of Labour will certainly play its part to the full.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-eight minutes to five o'clock.